A look at the Medical Billing Industry in 2020

We all know that the year 2020 started with COVID-19, and the first phase of the pandemic was badly severe, and many companies had to shut down due to no show of business during the course. Among such companies, healthcare is also the one that has badly hit and immensely, the pandemic has shown a great impact towards the medical billing industry. Anyhow, the last few years have been highly competitive for healthcare providers and medical billing companies.

Several reasons cater towards the loss of market share to giant aggregators in healthcare, and the introduction of cloud-based revenue cycle software is a big changeover with automation and as well as AI in medical billing. Although staying in line to new technological trends was more important to medical billing companies, they were unable to focus on localized and personalized services. On one hand, the need for embracing technology and seeking new revenue models playing an important role, on the other hand, medical billing companies had to compromise on their profits and embrace these changes.

In this blog we will take a look at what challenges the medical billing industry encounteredand how the entire healthcare industry had struggled during this 2020.

Challenges

Four issues that have consistently remained unresolvable in medical billing which are as follows:

#1: Educating patients

Many new patients do think that their medical insurance covers everything for their treatment and they need not pay even a single penny from their pocket, which is not true. Therefore, it becomes difficult for hospitals or clinics to explain to patients about their insurance policy coverage. Sometimes, ineffective communication can create a huge barrier between patients and medical practices. It results in creating complexity in medical billing.

#2: Coding errors

With constantly changing medical codes in medical billing, particularly with ICD-10 codes, most companies make mistakes and due to lack of frequent communication between clinicians and billing staff along with regular training on medical billing can help reduce it.

#3: Incomplete patient information

Failing to capture appropriate patient information is a very common barrier that affects receiving full and timely reimbursements.

#4: Following manual claims processing

When there are many companies that have automated their processes, there are still companies that rely on time-consuming and error-free manual processes and encounter the consequences of manual reimbursements.

How medical billing companies impacted by the crisis created by COVID-19?

A recent survey on healthcare highlighted the risks of patients and independent medical practices during the COVID-19 crisis. It stated that 9% of healthcare providers had to close their practice and several others were in a potential position of closure due to stay at home rule imposed. On one hand, most medical practices had to shut down their business, on the other hand, it showed a great impact on medical billing companies proportionately.

The survey also stated that with the impact of pandemic being very severe, around 50,000 medical billing partners have experienced a business loss across the nation. Due to a deep decline of patients in medical practice, the medical billing business also had a severe impact. Since these medical billing companies play a crucial role in providing medical billing expertise and improving the revenue of practices through quick reimbursements, the financial viability of many practices also was at stake.

Additionally, due to financial risks of these companies, the practice volumes increased and became unmanageable. Now said that all companies have gotten back to new normal and knowing the benefits of outsourcing, many independent practices and other healthcare companies are looking to outsource their medical billing due to piled up accounts receivables and new coding procedures executed because of the pandemic cause.

Conclusion

Be it a healthcare service provider or a local medical billing company when it comes to medical billing, definitely require support from expert medical billing companies to streamline their current medical billing process. 24/7 Medical Billing Services is a leading medical billing service providing company that has more than a decade experience in offering extensive support to the healthcare industry. If you wish to contact them, give a call to +1-888-502-0537 and get a free consultation.

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