Do you need medical coding services?

What is Medical Coding?

Medical coding is the transformation of healthcare diagnosis, procedures, medical services, and equipment into universal medical alphanumeric codes. The diagnoses and procedure codes are taken from medical record documentation, such as transcription of physician’s notes, laboratory and radiologic results, etc. Medical coding professionals help ensure the codes are applied correctly during the medical billing process, which includes abstracting the information from documentation, assigning the appropriate codes, and creating a claim to be paid by insurance carriers.

Why outsource Medical Coding?

Outsourcing medical coding services will provide you with accurate, high-quality results. With our professional coders checking and improving your healthcare documents with respect to medical coding, the chances of denials from the insurance payer will be greatly minimized.

Top benefits of outsourcing medical coding

#1 Financial Savings

While the ability to save money is an obvious benefit of outsourcing medical coding, it cannot be overlooked. Outsourcing allows companies to decrease office expenses and employee expenses, resulting in increased revenue.

#2 Focus on Core Business Activities

Outsourcing coding for an ambulatory surgical center or private practice also allows healthcare professionals to concentrate on core business activities. No back-office quality is sacrificed when outsourcing.

#3 Improved Accuracy

Over-coding and under-coding are two of the main medical coding problems that occur and they often result in claim rejection or a smaller reimbursement for claims. Outsourcing ensures accuracy when claims are made, reducing rejections and ensuring that companies get the maximum reimbursement when claims are made.

#4 Certified Coding Specialists

By outsourcing, companies enjoy all the benefits that certified coding specialists have to offer without all the costs of keeping them on staff.

#5 Saves Office Resources

Another benefit of outsourcing coding duties is the benefit of saving office resources. Resources are freed to work on important core activities and the overall flexibility of the organization is improved.

Steps of the medical coding process

1. Obtaining patient details and information

The process will start with your hospital providing the service provider with the patient medical record by giving access to your practice management system.

2. Pre-coding

Before the actual coding process begins, the medical coder will refer to the different sources present in the patient’s files, like imaging reports, diagnostic test reports, and the doctor’s transcription to verify the services rendered.

3. Assigning the codes and Quality checks

A team of medical coders who are skilled at handling coding will be asked to assign the right codes. Codes will be assigned in line along with defined standards in order to avoid up-coding or down-coding. Next, the assigned codes and the diagnosis will be verified for compatibility.

4. Preparing coded charts

Once the coding is completed, coded charts will be prepared and forwarded to the hospital or clinic. These charts will be used at the claims processing stage.

5. Feedback

At the end of the process, you can send in your feedback to the service provider.

Conclusion: 

Having a dedicated medical coding service for your firm can be a boon as they will be responsible for reading the medical files and notes of doctors and other practitioners and translating diagnoses, prescriptions, and the services rendered into relevant codes for insurance claims.