4 Questions You Must Ask Your Medical Billing Services Providers

Every healthcare practice has its unique necessities to meet to function properly. It is mainly medical professionals like physicians, nurses, etc. who handle the front office tasks. But apart from clinical duties, the practice also depends on administrative affairs. Usually, the back office staff, such as medical billing teams, etc., take on the responsibility to manage them. Keeping an in-house billing staff for medical billing services and other health IT roles isn’t that easy. Especially for small practices with limited revenues, it is almost impossible for them to do so. Rather, it puts an immense financial and workload burden on practice, leading to poor efficiency. Therefore, getting medical billing services from medical billing outsourcing companies is an ideal choice.

Right now, the healthcare sector is focused on compliance in every operation. We have HIPAA compliance rules for both healthcare facilities and their respective medical billing services. So, along with generating the claims, the billing providers play a significant role in ensuring compliance throughout. It starts with data collection and continues through use and sharing between different authorized entities.

Well, we have many medical billing companies in USA. One must be selective and wise when choosing one for their practice. Only an experienced billing company can manage your RCM operation. They send you analytics and reports and do audits frequently for the betterment of performance overall.

Make Medical Billing Services Accountable

To check that your medical billing services are doing well, you must ask them a few questions at least annually.

Let’s dig in and see what these questions are!

How are they protecting our facility and patients from increasing cyber threats?

We know how crucial it is to remain vigilant and proactive. The cybersecurity issue has been a big problem for every sector. It is like a nightmare for any practice; we could not stop them at all. Rather, we can apply various security measures as a precaution to avoid any risk.

The HHS Office for Civil Rights has forwarded its report on healthcare data breaches between 2009 and 2022. It is heartbreaking to know that 5,150 healthcare data breaches involving 500 or more records have been reported so far. It simply indicates that the healthcare sector is now a desirable target for hackers.

Here, let us tell you about the noteworthy security issues for facilities. These include the following:

Phishing attacks
Malware assaults
Ransomware occurrences

The average cost of these security breaches is $9.23 million, and they have serious repercussions. Additionally, they can harm our reputation.

We advise medical billing services to carry out yearly IT cybersecurity evaluations. This action might help reduce these threats as much as possible. These evaluations have to include a range of measures, including:

Network scanning for identifying all assets
Reviewing backup and disaster recovery processes
Evaluating firewall and security settings
Assessing ransomware and network risks
Conducting virus and malware scans
Generating reports for all assets

When was the most recent IT systems assessment conducted for our organization?

You must be aware of what your medical billing services are doing with your bills. How their IT facilities are operating to help your practices. Usually, the IT providers perform various assessments and send you reports with feedback. So, if you have any uncertainty about the recently performed evaluation, you should just find out. However, the ideal practice is to do an evaluation annually.

Along with the previously listed cybersecurity precautions, the evaluation should take into account the following factors:

Visual examination of all servers, networks, and workstations
Laying out a map of the used devices
Putting together a list of all the equipment on the site
Assessing the effectiveness of your wireless connections, network, and internet capacity
Examining important practice software
Executing a HIPAA SRA survey

Could you provide a brief overview of our bill? What exactly are we paying for?

You must have a thorough monthly statement. It will help you find the particular elements of your spending that might be challenging. Additionally, you can detect any unneeded products that you may already be handling.

Medical billing services could provide the following services:

Monitoring and maintenance

This entails maintaining a tight check on your IT systems. Thus, we figure out and fix problems and make sure they’re working properly by doing so.

Help desk assistance

With this service, you may get technical support for any issues or inquiries you might have with IT.

EHR management and implementation

If you use EHR systems, your physician may assist you with their establishment, modification, and ongoing administration.

Cloud computing

Here, the provider can be in charge of hosting and managing your data and cloud-based apps.

It’s vital to keep in mind that some IT services, like cloud or software migrations, are one-time occurrences. Others, meanwhile, are recurrent and want continuing assistance. Thus, understanding the cost breakdown of each service is crucial to ensuring transparency.

Are we currently under an SLA, and is the vendor meeting the defined metrics?

The ‘SLA’ stands for Service Level Agreement, which must be established in the beginning. It showcases the expected service level from medical billing services and IT vendors. Moreover, it also delineates the responsibilities and obligations of each entity, including any exceptions.

Here are a few examples of SLA provisions:

Uptime assurance

This refers to the level of availability for your systems and cloud-based applications that has been mutually agreed upon.

Technical support responses timelines

The vendor’s anticipated response time for requests for technical support may be outlined in the SLA.

Security precautions

The SLA could describe the security measures that the vendor constantly takes to protect your assets and data.

It is crucial to speak with your vendor if your SLA is still in effect. This discussion must concentrate on the metrics listed in the contract. Examine each SLA element and talk about how well it fulfilled the metrics. Investigate the causes if they are failing to achieve the SLA standards. After that, look into potential fixes. Your IT security might be jeopardized if SLAs are not met.

Conclusion

With these queries as a springboard, you may have fruitful discussions with vendors of IT and medical billing services. You may find out what services you’re getting, how much they’ll cost, and more. If the results don’t match your expectations, it’s time to look for a new partner to keep your IT environment functioning.

If your existing outsourcing firm isn’t working well, you may rely on us as well. For any demand in your practice, our top medical billing services offer specialized solutions.