How Outsourcing Medical Billing Can Streamline Your Practice’s Cashflow

Pitfalls in Switching Billing Services

The biggest pitfall that I’ve found in offering billing services to physicians throughout the country is their inability to realize the impact switching to an outside vendor is going to have on their practice.

Potential Loss of Revenue During Transition

The impact that I’m referring to is the loss of revenue during a transition between an old billing service or doing billing in-house and outsourcing the billing to a new practice management company or medical billing company.

Revenue Loss Can Have Long-Term Negative Impacts

Making this transition without proper knowledge of what that transition is going to look like is going to deplete your cash flow and medical practices, thus having really major negative impacts not only on the physicians themselves but also on ownership and making rent payments and lease payments on equipment, devices, etc. This can really have a long-term impact on that practice if not done and executed properly.

Solution to Revenue Loss During the Transition

The best solution for this is a properly executed and documented plan outlining when the practice management company is going to step in, what their deliverable is going to be, how quickly they’re expected to get up and running, and from what date of service they’re going to be 100% live, therefore allowing the old billing service or billers, who may be internal to the practice, to complete all necessary tasks through that go-live date and ensure cash-flow is streamlined throughout that entire process.

Billing Service Transition Example Problems

What you don’t want to happen is for the old billing company to, for example, stop on June 30th and the new billing company to go live on July 1st, but unfortunately, the EDI enrollments between the old billing software and the new billing software isn’t done properly. That allows for cash flow to be depleted very very quickly.

How To Avoid Complications in Transitioning Billing Services

What you want to do is make sure that you put together a streamlined plan allowing the new billing service and new billing software proper ample time to not only get that Clearinghouse EDI enrollment set up properly but also ensure that everything has been tested, the team is in place, everybody’s trained, SOPs are in order, and you’re ready to hit the ground running on your go-live day with that new billing agency.