How to Measure Billing Quality for a Medical Practice

A medical practice billing department sends out patients' bills and tracks payments. The billing department also submits claims to insurance, interacts with insurance agency representatives and tracks the agreements the office has with different insurance companies. Measure the quality of your medical billing department to determine if it is providing your office with the expertise and service needed for the complicated world of medical billing.

Instructions

1. Ask how your office staff handles billing. Ask to see a particular patient's account. Your staff needs to be able to quickly respond to your request. Read the account summary to determine if insurance claims have been filed in a timely manner, follow up calls have been made, insurance payments received and that a bill has been sent to the patient.

2. Pay attention to who supervises the billing department in your medical practice. Take the time to look into your billing practices to measure how well your current procedures are serving your business interests.

3. Calculate the cost of maintaining billing in your office. Total payroll hours and add the cost of overhead, postage, paper, computer programming costs, telephone bills and any other costs attributed to billing. Think about the other functions your staff performs. Determine if all functions are receiving the time and attention they deserve.

4. Calculate the costs and benefits of outsourcing your medical billing to a company that specializes in this service. Find information on billing services on the American Collection Systems' website or other company offering billing services.

5. Contact references to ask their opinion of the medical billing service from Step 4. Ask how the service interacts with patients and insurance companies. Arrange a meeting with a representative of the billing service to learn how they can improve your practice's medical billing.

Resources

• Visit the American Collection Services website for more info.