SUD Billing Challenges: How to Overcome Them and Succeed

In the previous year, 63.8 million adults aged 18 and up in the United States had either a substance use disorder or a mental illness. In fact, one in every 12 adults had a substance use disorder, and one in every five adults had a mental illness. Approximately 12% of these adults (7.9 million) had a substance use disorder and a mental health problem. This is referred to as a co-occurring behavioral health disorder. Amidst all these issues, healthcare providers in the US also face various substance abuse disorder (SUD) billing challenges adding emotional issues to business profitability.

Every healthcare system needs help with bill issuance, follow-up, and payment. Some issues are with patients, while others are with healthcare institutions. In any case, they all require modern and innovative solutions. But before that, let’s have a look at a few potential areas of concern:

Burnout:

Healthcare providers, particularly those in high-pressure fields such as substance abuse disorders or critical care, may experience the challenge of burnout. This can be due to long working hours on SUD billing and other core activities, heavy workloads, and the emotional toll of caring for patients. This burnout can ultimately lead to decreased productivity and job satisfaction, impacting the profitability of substance abuse treatment facilities.

Financial stress:

Nowadays, financial stress is one of the most common emotional challenges faced by service providers. Various reasons add to the financial stress of substance abuse treatment providers. These include increasing healthcare costs, decreasing reimbursement rates, and investing in expensive equipment and technology. This increasing stress among the providers can impact their ability to make sound business decisions and lead to frustration and helplessness among everyone.

Staffing issues:

Finding and retaining qualified staff is a significant challenge for many substance abuse treatment providers, particularly in areas with high demand for healthcare services. These staff members include doctors, nurses, substance abuse disorders billers and coders, and alike. This entire process of finding and retaining can sometimes lead to understaffing. Thereby, it can impact patient care and contribute to feelings of stress and burnout among existing staff.

Compliance concerns:

Substance abuse treatment providers are subject to a wide range of regulatory requirements and compliance issues, which can be overwhelming and confusing. Such violations include upcoding, unbundling, code alterations, and many more. Failure to comply with these requirements can result in fines and other penalties, impacting profitability and creating anxiety and uncertainty.

Ethical dilemmas:

Substance abuse treatment providers may encounter ethical dilemmas in their day-to-day work, such as conflicts between providing quality care and maximizing profits. In fact, there are various ways by which these providers can maximize their earnings, such as accurate and timely substance abuse disorders billing, clean claims submission, and the like. But these dilemmas can be emotionally challenging and impact providers’ sense of purpose and satisfaction with their work.

How to Overcome Them and Succeed?

Understanding and addressing these substance abuse disorders (SUD) billing challenges and adding emotional issues can be vital to promoting business profitability. Not only this, it ensures that substance abuse treatment providers can provide high-quality care to their patients. The most optimal solution to ensure success is relying on outsourcing partners.

Outsourcing SUD Billing to 24/7 Medical Billing Services!

Laws, rules and regulations, and other emotional challenges affecting substance abuse treatment facilities can change at any time, causing it to be hard to remain profitable without expert assistance. When considering your facility’s growth and quality, it is essential to steer clear of short-term solutions for long-term problems.

Many substance abuse treatment centres require SUD billing service provider expertise in order to deal with financial stress and burnout to ultimately increase reimbursements. Substance abuse treatment facilities may be unaware of services that could help them improve their operations and key performance indicators that show their success.

24/7 Medical Billing Services can assess your substance abuse treatment facility and recommend services to ensure financial independence and success. Our solutions and procedures are transparent to your facility, so you can feel confident in your future success while letting go of the operational processes.

Read more: Substance Abuse Disorder Billing Services