Unique Challenges of Mental Health
Mental health billing offers unique challenges than another specialty medical billing. The length of the session, the approach to therapy, and the willingness of the patient to contribute make it far more difficult to standardize treatment and hence billing. Moreover, the manner in which insurance companies look at mental health is noticeably unlike the way they look at more traditional medical practices. Insurance companies can determine how long treatments are allowed to take and how many sessions can take place each day, making it challenging for mental health providers to balance effective billing with adequate patient treatment. Additionally, the requirement of pre-authorization has resulted in more difficulty and complexity for mental health billing.
With mental health, it’s quite common to have a small group or solo practices with limited administrative support for billing and other office duties. Some providers will even try to do the billing themselves but sooner or later, this will become overwhelming and produce time management problems, not to mention lost revenue. All this makes the billing process quite demanding for mental health professionals. They need to make sure that they can keep income levels high while also assuring that each and every patient gets the utmost quality care. Without an expert billing team, keeping up-to-date on healthcare billing codes, changing regulations, and the billing practices of each insurance company, practice collections may decline.
Managing Billing Challenges of Mental Health
One on hand, having an expert mental health billing team may not be possible due to financial limitations. While on the other, handling billing responsibilities for your practice is not feasible due to a lack of time and billing expertise. So, for managing the unique billing challenges of your mental health practice, outsourcing is the best option. When you outsource mental health billing for your practice, you can dedicate almost all of your time to patient care. While billing experts from outsourced billing companies are handling each and every claim, you can just take a look at the billing reports to get a complete understanding of insurance reimbursements. Most of the billing companies charge on a percentage basis, that is also on the insurance reimbursements received, so you don’t have to worry about paying extra to these billing companies. Some of the advantages of outsourcing your mental health billing are listed below.
Increased Practice Collections
Nothing is more worrisome than disputing with the insurance carriers over unpaid claims. When you outsource your mental health billing, each and every claim will get submitted on time and any rejected or denied claim will get resubmitted. This will ensure that all your sessions are billed and follow-ups are taken properly to ensure payment for every submitted claim. Submitting accurate claims, taking follow up, working on claim rejections, reading remittance advice, finding a resolution for denied claims, coordinating with insurance carriers are been taken care by billing company only. All these timely activities by the billing company will ensure increased practice collections.
Clean Claim Submission
Clean claim submission ensures that you will receive insurance reimbursements on time. Clean claim submission means accurately entering all claim-related details for every claim. This claim information includes patient demographics, insurance information, payable diagnosis codes, date of service, procedure codes, number units, rendering provider details, and billing provider details. Any mistake in entering any of this information could lead to rejecting your claim. When your claim got rejected, you have to correct the details and resubmit the claim again, this delays insurance reimbursements. Experts from billing companies are well versed with the clean claim submission process and crosschecks all submitted claim information to ensure minimum rejections.
Cost-Effective Solutions
Hiring a full-time in-house medical biller may not be feasible for solo or small group practice. If you are submitting a smaller number of claims then having a dedicated biller may incur more cost than income. Most of the medical billing companies charge on basis of insurance reimbursements received. They will charge percentage-wise on insurance collections realized at providers’ end. It’s a cost-effective way as providers are paying only when they are receiving insurance reimbursements.
Reduce Overheads
You can reduce your office expenses by using the services of a third-party biller as well as the existing software. All you need is a PC and access to the internet. The majority of practice management software is all-inclusive, even over the internet, and is part of the service provided. No costly software updates or support fees. When you hire an in-house biller, you have to manage their payroll, employment benefits, holidays, and training expenses also. You can reduce all these overheads costs by outsourcing.
Recover Lost Opportunity
Every minute spent tracking down claim information in the course of your business day is a minute you’re unable to devote to providing direct care. This disruption forces you to miss out on would-be income opportunities. Let’s say you charge $100 per hour and devote one business hour every day on billing. In this instance, you may be losing up to $500 every week. When you recoup this lost time by employing a billing service, you’ll be growing your income potential and, in many cases, producing added revenue that exceeds the cost of the billing service.
We can take your mental health billing burden.
Medisys Data Solutions is providing complete billing and coding services to mental health providers across states. Our billing services ensure accurate insurance reimbursements for all submitted claims. To know more about our mental health billing services, contact us at info@medisysdata.com/ 302-261-9187
