Patient Demographics/Registration in Medical Billing
Posted by Deepak Sanghi on May 29th, 2015
The success rate of medical claims processing is always determined by a good start! However, this is the part where most of the healthcare entities go wrong. Although they show immense care on the AR and denial management, claim denials still occur. The reason is that healthcare entities overlook the patient demographics part, which is the basis for proper medical claims processing and reimbursement.Let us see how patient demographics/registration plays an important role in medical billing:
Patient Demographics: Also known as the claim’s face sheet, patient demographicsrefers to documentingpersonal information from patients on their first visit. Right from the patient name and address, to Social Security Number (SSN) and emergency contact information, a patient demographics entry contains all the fundamentaldetails about a patient.To carry out error-freemedical claims processing, it is imperative that the patient demographics entry is accurate.
Past and Present:In the past, the patient demographics entry was done manually, but after the adoption of EHR, all the patient information is captured using the billing software. It made the work of healthcare entities simple and easy. Errors can still happen when patient demographics is entered using the latest billing software.In such cases, manual intervention is unavoidable as it would be needed for Demo audits. Therefore, it is essential that healthcare entities show additional care in this area to avoid denial management. For proper patient demographics/registration and revenue cycle solutions, healthcare entities can outsource the work to experienced offshore medical billing companies.
The Traditional Way: Many small practices and US medical claims processing companies still follow the traditional way of entering patient demographics. Such healthcare entities do not use EHR and are at high risk of facing claim denials and revenue loss. The manual entry of patient demographics is not only time-consuming, but also error-prone. Most healthcare entities review the different medical billing processes to find what problem caused the claim denial. However, they overlookone important thing which is the patient demographics entry form.A highly-experienced offshore medical billing company can do this job effortlessly and effectively. Therefore outsourcing medical claims processing would be a prudent decision for healthcare entitiesthat follow manual patient data entry and do not have anEHR integrated with their billingsystem.
Offshore Medical Billing: It is the perfect revenue cycle solution for healthcare entities that thrive to succeed in the US healthcare domain. Outsourcing saves a lot of money while managing claims denials and AR pile up. In addition to patient demographics entry, the offshore medical billing company can also take care of other medical claims processing services like insurance eligibility verification and charge entry.
About e-care India:
e-care India has 15 years of experience in the industry.e-care’s 3 offshore medical claims processingdelivery centers have been providing end-to-end medical claims processing services and denialmanagement services seamlessly to its clients. To know more about e-care and its services, log on to www.ecareindia.com.
