All Posts Tagged: University Medical Billing

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why you should be using a medical billing company

Why You Should Be Using A Medical Billing Company

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A medical billing company is a valuable resource for physicians, medical practices, and other similar healthcare providers. There are many things medical billing professionals do other than post bills to patients. A good medical billing company will handle entering data about your patients into a patient management software such as patient information, physician information, medical codes, insurance information, as well as payment information. Additionally, medical billing professionals will help keep the payment process moving by re-submitting claims, interacting with all necessary parties to complete the billing process, as well as collecting payments from patients and insurers.

While some medical practices opt to do these services in house, there are many reasons why these services should be outsourced to a qualified medical billing company.

Finances

You will save money outsourcing medical billing to a third-party provider. The costs related to purchasing software and hiring and training staffers to do the work typically exceeds the amount you would pay to a medical billing service. In addition, medical billing companies will likely keep a closer eye on denied claims, forms, bills, and other issues that come up with medical billing while one or two staffers in your office may overlook these important issues causing severely delayed or lost payments.

Compliance

Medical billing companies are invested in staying up to date with the latest laws and regulations related to medical billing and patient management. Being compliant ensures that their clients are receiving the high quality service they can rely on. A medical billing company will award peace of mind that your practice’s medical billing practices comply with new laws, regulations, and industry standards.

Time

Another reason why you should hire a medical billing company is to better serve your patients by dedicating your time and resources to treating your patients instead of having to deal with billing. Running a practice brings a lot of responsibility, however outsourcing the revenue cycle to a third party provider frees up your time to focus on patient care.

Efficiency

Most medical billing companies will be able to provide comprehensive reporting on each aspect of the revenue cycle to show you where improvements can be made whether it’s during patient intake or after. This reporting provides an in depth look into the inner workings of your process and point out how to make it more efficient which could resolve cash flow issues, improve payment collection, and shorten the time between the patient’s visit and receiving the final payment. Without medical billing experts to help identify some of these opportunities, you could be leaving money on the table.

A medical billing company can provide a streamlined process starting with patient intake all the way through to final collections relating to the patient’s visit. Making sure this process is working at optimum levels is vital to the financial health of your practice. This process is called revenue cycle management and it’s all about processing information in a timely and strategic manner that will result in collecting payments as quickly and as efficiently as possible. In addition, a medical billing company will be able to communicate the status of your revenue cycle management and make recommendations for improvement. Overall, the business side of your practice must be working efficiently in order to keep it running. A medical billing company can help any practice do just that.  Contact MHS today to set up a demo and we can show you how we can help improve your bottom line.

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American College Health Association

What to Expect at the 2018 ACHA American College Health Association Meeting

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Uniting…Leading…Transforming: this is the focus of the American College Health Association (ACHA). This year, ACHA invites college health leaders to Washington to celebrate the annual meeting. You can join 2,000 colleagues in college health and wellness for a program by and for college health leaders, using this opportunity to join like-minded professionals from across the country to unite, lead, and transform. Registration is now open for the ACHA 2018 Annual Meeting in Washington DC scheduled for May 29 to June 2. If you register by April 9, you’ll enjoy an Early Bird Rate. The last day of pre-registering is set for May 8.

Held in collaboration with the mid-Atlantic College Health Association, the ACHA meeting is a unique opportunity to connect with other college health leaders to improve the health and resilience of today’s college students. Over these five days, you will take part in networking, collaborating, and continuing education with a focus on:

  • Advocating for optimal college health through networking and collaboration.
  • Creating goals and innovative strategies to ensure a brighter future for college health.
  • Forge new ideas to improve the health and wellness of U.S. college campuses.

 

A Look at the Schedule

At a glance, here’s what you can expect for a schedule as you attend ACHA 2018 in Washington DC.

  • Tuesday, May 29: Registration takes place from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. There will also be pre-conference workshops, the ACHA Leaders’ Lunch, and committee meetings.
  • Wednesday, May 30: Newcomers’ Orientation, keynote address, educational programming, opening reception in the evening.
  • Thursday, May 31: Opening breakfast with exhibitors, exhibit hall, posters, affiliate meetings.
  • Friday, June 1: School Spirit Day, Dorosin Memorial Lecture, assembly of representatives.
  • Saturday, June 2: Breakfast, Closing Presidential Session.

A full schedule can be found on the ACHA 2018 website. Let’s focus on some of the above noteworthy events.

Dorosin Memorial Lecture: Led by Dr. Andres De Los Reyes, associate professor of psychology and director of clinical training at the University of Maryland at College Park. He is the director of the Comprehensive Assessment and Intervention Program that aims to improve understanding of social anxiety among teens and young adults.

Keynote Address: Dr. Anne Schuchat, MD, is the principal deputy director of the CDC. She has played key roles in CDC emergencies, including the 2009 H1N1 and 2003 SARS outbreaks. She has also worked extensively on meningitis, pneumonia and Ebola vaccine trials in West Africa.

Closing Presidential Session: Jake Olson, blind author, motivational speaker and athlete, has co-written two books about overcoming adversity. He lost his left eye as a baby and his right eye at 12 years old due to retinoblastoma, a cancer of the retina.

Getting Around

Washington DC is easy to traverse, with access to the metro system, plenty of taxis and Ubers, and Capital Bikeshare. To make the most of your trip, make sure you take in some sights while here, such as:

  • Smithsonian Museums. They are FREE!
  • Eat on U Street for culinary diversity.
  • Shop in Georgetown.
  • Stroll down National Mall at night.
  • View the National Monuments.
  • Enjoy a free performance at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage each night at 6 p.m.

About ACHA

The American College Health Association (ACHA) has been linking college health professionals throughout the country and globe since 1920. The result? The formation of a powerful, collaborative networking base that can help guide and support your health services, programs, and professional development. The end game is to advance the health of college students nationwide via advocacy, education and research. Recognized as the voice of expertise in college health, ACHA looks to promote healthy campus communities and students thanks to these values:

  1. Respect for all
  2. Student-centered services
  3. Professional excellence, responsiveness, and ethical practice
  4. Multidisciplinary and collaborative approaches to health
  5. Participation of other stakeholders whose sole purpose is to advance health
  6. Active involvement of students
  7. Evidence-based practices as a foundation for programs

Medical Healthcare Solutions is your trusted resource for medical billing, with a strong commitment to student health services billing in particular. To learn more about our services or why you should attend ACHA 2018, call us at 800-762-9800 or fill out our online form.

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student health billing

Increase Focus on Student Care with Third Party Billing

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As a student care provider, you no doubt want to center your efforts on the quality of care that your students are receiving. Whether you manage a boarding high school, a small college or a university, you are likely experiencing some difficulties in terms of billing, particularly if you’re trying to handle it all in-house. This taxes your existing staff, increases chances for costly mistakes, and can be detrimental to your bottom line as accounts receivables are not enforced like they should be.

Your students need quality care, that’s a given. It’s also a fact that they have to be billed for those services. Generally, health care services are not covered under tuition costs. This is a precarious situation because many students are still included on their parents’ health plan. But what works in terms of billing for the parents may not necessarily work well on the student end. Students, especially young ones who may only be 14 starting out their first year at a boarding school, need extra TLC. They are in a new environment, they have questions that Mom or Dad can’t answer and they need help. That’s where you come in.

As such, it’s important that you streamline your medical billing efforts to bring an increased focus to student care.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than 20 million students were enrolled at American colleges and universities in 2015, an increase of nearly five million since 2000. All of those students require quality care.

How Third Party Billing Helps

When it comes to student health billing, consider a third party provider to handle all this. You may currently divide billing among your staff, or perhaps you have an in-house employee that takes care of this. Either way, you could be losing money. Not only that, you could be devoting so much time on billing tasks and chasing down payments that you are failing in your most integral role: caregiver.

So, why should you outsource to a billing service? The main reason is to establish a new revenue stream through the reduction of self-pay billable line items. Those streams that you may have believed uncollectible now have the ability to be recouped, presenting a whole new possibility for revenue and growth potential. This is a good thing, especially in an economic climate where the recovery rate for non-hospitals is 21 percent for healthcare debt and collections, says ACA International.

Medical billing is demanding, draining, time-consuming and challenging. Taxing your staff with these challenges absolutely takes away time and resources better spent with your young patients. In addition to increased focus on student care, you can experience these benefits from hiring a third party biller:

  • Reduce billing errors
  • Save thousands of dollars annually on salaries and benefits, office supplies, furniture, billing software maintenance and computer equipment
  • Reduce billing interruptions due to employee absence
  • Improve patient satisfaction
  • Ensure billing compliance
  • Increase revenue

Sound like an asset to your school? Contact Medical Healthcare Solutions to learn how to make this a reality.

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Student Health Billing Services

How Universities Are Benefiting From Student Health Billing Services

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One of the main goals of school districts, boards, and administrators is to make more money for their college or university, in addition to ensuring the safety, well-being, and education of their students. If you’re not streamlining your billing processes through outsourced student health billing services, you could be leaving money on the table that could go right back into your business. Students need health services. That’s a given. They are away from home, often for the first time, they have their own insurance or are still under their parents’ insurance. When they visit the school nurse for care, whether a routine appointment or sick visit, there must be some sort of seamless process in place that can ensure high collection rates.

With student health billing services, schools can bring in more money overall. To achieve that, they need a medical billing service behind them driving this effort.

Benefits of Student Health Billing

Many schools’ student health services departments use a fee-for-service billing model, just like students would find at their primary care physician’s office back home. Anything from office visits and lab services to x-rays and pharmacy meds is billed to the insurance carrier, while basic services such as first aid, consultations, advice from nurses, and nutrition counseling are typically offered free of charge. There are many benefits to improving your bottom line with student health billing services, including:

  • More control: With an outsourced company handling all the time-consuming work and headaches associated with student health billing, you can concentrate on more important aspects of your department, mainly the quality of patient care. Such a service can make quick monthly and annual comparisons, while factors such as charge entry errors or payer reimbursement issues can be identified quickly before becoming a far-reaching problem. With such a team approach to achieving goals, less time is spent by your regular staff on tedious billing and clerical tasks.
  • Consistency: If you are billing in-house, you’re risking revenue interruptions when changes happen to your staff or someone calls in sick. Outsourcing your medical billing puts an entire team at your disposal who ensure claims get processed quickly and accurately. As a result, there’s less risk of cash flow disruptions. An outsourced medical billing service can also coordinate with your front-office staff to ensure co-payments are collected consistently from students, who are notoriously low on cash.  
  • Insider Knowledge: A medical billing service has a vast knowledge base from which to draw on, as they work with many other schools and practice networks to bring you leading-edge experience in real time for faster turnarounds.
  • Faster payments: The goal of any medical billing service is to bring in cash — quick. Time spent in revenue cycle time can make a huge difference on your cash flow situation. Outsourced medical billers can submit claims faster, with fewer mistakes, quicker payment turnarounds, and the highest reimbursement possible.

Medical Healthcare Solutions is your trusted partner in facilitating quick, consistent, effective student health billing services that improve the bottom line for your college or university. Call us today at 800-762-9800 to learn more.

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