What Is Medical Billing Software?
If you are someone who works in the healthcare industry, you must have witnessed that the medical billing software market has grown rapidly over the last few years. In fact, growth of 12.3 percent is anticipated by 2026.
Are you a healthcare provider who is using medical billing software at his practice? If not, it would be a great time to start now.
Keep reading to learn more about what medical billing software is and how it works. You will also get insights on how it will be beneficial for you to use medical billing software to take away the administrative burden of your healthcare practice.
Let’s Understand Medical Billing Software
Medical Billing Software, as the name suggests, is a specially designed computer program. The program is specially designed for healthcare professionals to streamline their workflow and minimize the administrative burden.
Accurate medical billing is a crucial part of running every practice in the healthcare industry. Medical billing software is an application for providers that automates the time-consuming and tedious tasks of medical billing. However, it would not be appropriate to say that medical billing software simply tracks payments and invoices because medical billing processes differ in every healthcare practice.
The tasks of medical practices are not only limited to accepting payment from patients, but they also must coordinate with health insurers to receive timely reimbursements. With only one health insurance company, it might be a less complicated task, but what adds to the complications is that there are several health insurance providers. They cover costs at different rates based on the insurance plan of the patient being treated and demands scrutiny.
Not only this but there are also cases where patients might get overcharged by a health provider because of the confusion or uncertainty if insurance covers the cost or not. If the insurance company covers that cost, medical practices must pay back the patients who overpaid. It might sound like a lot of moving parts to manage, right?
This is where the role of Medical Billing Software starts. Healthcare practices and medical billing companies use software to improve their reimbursement rates, optimize their revenue cycles, and sustain the financial health of their business. This is because of the growing complications in the complex medical billing landscape. When you use medical billing software in your healthcare, it does more than just track claims and payments.
The right medical billing software for your healthcare is the one that addresses every phase of the medical billing process. This begins from the initial appointment scheduling to payment processing. For instance, when a patient schedules an appointment, the role of medical billing software is to check their insurance eligibility and set up automatic patient reminders. This is done to limit the number of no-shows. When you choose the right medical billing software like – Unify Medicraft, it will automatically sync patient and treatment information from electronic health records (EHR) with medical billing. This will keep administrative staff and medical staff aligned.
You might have got a clear idea about what medical billing software is. The next question that arises here is how it benefits your organization.
Let’s Discuss the Practical Benefits of a Medical Billing Software:
The role of the right medical billing software is to simplify the complexities associated with billing tasks and the process of collection.
Key Benefits of a Medical Billing Software
Automate the Processes
In the modern medical billing market design, it is important to introduce your healthcare practice to automation. The unique abilities of billing software will allow your office staff to work more efficiently as it reduces the possibility of mistakes. In addition to this, this software can be used to automatically send patients payment reminders, verify insurance coverage, and submit insurance claims carefully.
When we manage insurance claims and verify coverage manually, it is quite a time-consuming task. This also distracts medical practitioners from their priority tasks of imparting quality patient care. With the help of the right medical billing software, all of these essential tasks are automated. To avoid denials, staff can still manually validate service codes before claim submission. However, they won’t have to go through the arduous process of creating and submitting claims.
Reduction in Errors and Mistakes
There is always a chance of errors and omissions in the payment processing process. It can be a costly affair for healthcare providers. On one side, if you overcharge patients, you could lose patients who pay too much, and if you make a mistake billing insurance, there is a possibility that your healthcare might have to face legal consequences. Medical billing software helps medical practices to drastically reduce or eliminate errors in carrying the medical billing process.
The billing software helps administrative staff to properly format claims and carefully validates insurance service codes, which reduces the number of denied claims. Prevention of mistakes enhances the patient's experience. It can be used to actively manage every expense and payment associated with your medical practice.
Flexibility in payment
When your practice gives patients access to more payment options, it enhances your practice’s ability to collect reimbursements. This reduces the number of unpaid invoices in healthcare. For instance, medical billing software will give patients the option to pay in person with cash or a card. They can even pay online before or after their appointment. Healthcare providers can even set up automatic payment options for patients who want to pay in treatment payment plans.
Ensures Data Security
When your practice gives patients access to more payment options, it enhances your practice’s ability to collect reimbursements. This reduces the number of unpaid invoices in healthcare. For instance, medical billing software will give patients the option to pay in person with cash or a card. They can even pay online before or after their appointment. Healthcare providers can even set up automatic payment options for patients who want to pay in treatment payment plans.
Billing software like Unify Medicraft is fully compliant with HIPAA. Also, if you choose a cloud-based solution, you will be given added layers of encryption and security.
Top Medical Billing Software
Unify Medicraft
Medicraft is an innovative, unified cloud-based RCM solution for all healthcare practices. Unify Medicraft equally focuses on healthcare practices of all shapes and sizes. The main aim is to help streamline RCM processes in the organization. Their seamless and end-to-end RCM solution ensures that healthcare can solely focus on building the best relationship with their patients. The smooth flow of healthcare processes is taken care of in the back end by the experts.
We have already been helping various physicians, hospitals, and medical practices for many years now. The key features of Unify Medicraft that distinguishes it from other software's are:
Fully Integrated
Healthcare professionals will not get confused exporting/importing from EMR to the billing software. Unify Medicraft ensures & custom integrate them for a seamless workflow.
No Interruptions
You don’t have to worry about missing any update while you move from your old system to the new and transformed billing platform as the experts will take care of everything.
Coding Assessment
Every effort is made by the professionals, and everything is reviewed with scrutiny. You will be properly coached on how to improve your coding to maximize your revenue and meet all the Value-Based Care metrics.
Kareo
Kareo is another software designed for healthcare practices that makes the business of running an independent practice easier and more rewarding. Kareo is a cloud-based clinical- and business-management platform purpose-built for independent healthcare practices. The all-in-one integrated modules work together to empower you with the tools to tackle your toughest administrative challenges within the healthcare practice.
WebPT
WebPT is an innovative, end-to-end Practice Experience Management (PXM) platform designed specifically for rehab therapy professionals. The software is paired with exceptional education and support. WebPT provides solutions to every rehab therapy business—from single-therapist clinics to multi-location enterprises. With the tools and knowledge necessary to maximize performance, revenue, and patient outcomes, the software is capable of taking away your administrative burden. After years of relentless market research and innovation, the platform is better equipped than ever to effectively address a wide range of challenges faced by rehab therapy professionals. The aim is to help healthcare professionals to excel in their practice and take the healthcare industry forward.
CareCloud
CareCloud is recognized as a trusted medical billing partner serving a number of healthcare providers. The software is committed to supporting healthcare clients with modern, cloud-based clinical, financial, and administrative software and services that enhance the operations of every practice. By choosing CareCloud you will get a flexible, consultative approach to technology-enabled solutions for your medical groups and organizations.
Importance of a getting a Medical Billing Software for your Healthcare
After reading the above-mentioned information, if you are still skeptical about getting medical billing software for your healthcare, understanding the benefits of medical billing software might change your mind.
Top reasons to get a medical billing software for your practice:
Increased accessibility to information
After you decide to invest in medical billing software, you no longer must spend several minutes or even hours digging through files to try and find the information you need. As a healthcare provider, you must be tired of wasting time and resources looking into patient details or insurance information. If that is a scenario, the right software will make all your processes significantly easier.
Few errors, less paperwork
Be it medical billing, insurance approval, or the claim-filling processes, medical billing software digitizes many aspects of medical billing. If you’re looking to reduce waste in your office, investing in software will surely make a huge difference. Medical billing software reduces the chances of human error, too. All the processes that were previously handled by people manually are handled automatically. This frees a healthcare professional to focus on other things and worry less about issues like calculation errors.
Easy Financial Reporting
The right medical billing software will provide real-time, detailed financial reports with very little work required from your side. These reports can be used to manage patient health records, monitor practice performance, and increase efficiency. This improves the overall patient experience. What’s more important is that you don't have to go through the time and effort of putting them together because the software does the heavy lifting for you.
Simplified Coding Process
As a healthcare provider, you and your team know the hustle to keep up with the changing ICD codes in the healthcare world. And what makes the task even more complex is the evolving nature of codes. It is important to keep track of all the updates to ensure timely reimbursements. And for that, you need medical billing software dedicated to managing your administrative burden.
Improved Payment Collections
Finally, after the entire medical coding and billing process is sorted, the medical billing software makes it easier for the healthcare professionals to collect payments from patients. As you streamline your medical billing process with software, you create a better customer service experience for your customers. This ultimately increases the likelihood of people coming back to your healthcare, to avail services.
Conclusion
Until now you must be convinced that medical billing software is a good choice for your healthcare practice. There are plenty of options you can consider when you make a decision to get software. The main thing to keep in mind is that you must be aware of your requirements and select the one that suits your needs.