Around 50 million people in America suffer from insomnia and other sleeping disorders. So that's why sleep studies are performed in the US to understand the reason for these disorders. Sleep study billing process mainly includes data on the patient’s sleeping pattern, breathing habits, and brain activity. However, there are several challenges that comes with it such as incorrect billing, prior authorization issues, and many more which often become difficult for the healthcare providers to solve. So that is why many healthcare providers are considering outsourcing sleep study billing services which are helping them to maintain a proper cash flow. However, the issue of those providers are they lack a clear idea of how to choose the best billing service which will be covered in this blog.
What are the factors to consider when choosing the best sleep study billing services?
Experienced and consistent professionals: One of the major issues in sleep billing is that the healthcare staff use the wrong CPT, ICD, and HCPCS codes as they do not have enough knowledge on this, which eventually leads to claim denials. So that is where the sleep centers use certified and trained medical biller who understands all the nuances of sleep analysis procedures and use the appropriate codes so that no billing issues occur.
Adherence to all the updated regulations: The billing regulations are very complex for healthcare providers to incorporate into their billing process. Moreover, it also becomes difficult for healthcare providers to stay updated with all the healthcare regulations as they have other tasks to do. So that is where a billing company comes in who knows all the updated billing regulations to make a streamlined billing process. Apart from that, they handle all the patient information by strictly following the HIPAA act so that the patient does not have to worry about their data security.
Properly maintaining prior authorization procedure: The prior authorization procedure is very complex which is why it takes a lot of time for the healthcare providers. Moreover, the healthcare providers manually review all the prior authorization procedures which is also very much time-consuming. So that is where the importance of sleep study professionals comes into the picture. They utilize advanced technologies to automate the prior authorization procedure, which leads to fewer billing errors and smoother claim submissions.
Dedicated resources: As the staff of the healthcare providers are involved in almost all the healthcare operations, they do not get adequate time to focus on the only services related to the study of sleep. So that is why there is a dire need for a sleep billing service that specifically assigns staff to handle all the sleep-study-related tasks, thereby reducing billing inaccuracies and increasing the cash flow of the providers.
Efficient and streamlined billing process: The manual billing process is very labor-intensive and time-consuming. Apart from that, it will take a lot of time for the healthcare staff to learn to implement a new technology to streamline the billing process as they have less knowledge about it. Here a biller proficient in sleep-related study utilizes technologies and tools that catch small errors in the billing process, thereby reducing billing inaccuracies. Hence, an efficient and streamlined billing process leads to quicker claim submission which eventually leads to faster reimbursements and increased revenue of the healthcare providers.
As the billing regulations are constantly changing, so it is becoming difficult for healthcare providers to stay updated with all the regulations as they have other tasks to do. Moreover, if the providers only focus on improving their billing process, then they may not get the time to focus on quality patient care which can halt their revenue growth. So that is why it will be a feasible option to outsource sleep study billing services which can help them to reduce their focus from administrative tasks and increase focus on patient care.
Like it? Share it!
About the Author
William Jones Joined: May 7th, 2019 Articles Posted: 96
