How would you ensure that patients are billed accurately?

You run a medical practice and ensure that your patients get the desired treatment with the best possible medical care. At the same time, your patients expect to be billed correctly. If you do not ensure whether your patients are billed accurately for the services rendered, you may observe a decline not just in your revenue but in the number of patients visiting you as well! 

Incorrect bills submitted for claims will result in denials, decreased revenue, and dissatisfied patients. Preparing accurate bills is as important as providing quality health care services to your patients. This article will discuss the general billing errors, consequences of incorrect billing, and how you can ensure that your patients are billed accurately!

General Billing Mistakes

• Collecting incorrect patient information (Address, DOB, Claim information, etc.) 
• Billing patients for the services not rendered
• Billing patients for the services that should have been covered by their insurance company
• Billing twice for the same services that patients had already paid
• Using incorrect medical billing code

These errors usually occur due to the negligence of your billing and front-end staff. The error-free medical bills will not just keep your patients’ trust in you but help to improve your revenue as well. As a medical professional, you should be aware of the consequences of incorrect billing as well. 

Repetitive instances of incorrect billing may bring your practice under government scrutiny and you may be booked for medical fraud. You might need to pay severe federal penalties, and costly fines as well. 

Considering the consequences and to keep medical ethics in place, you should always ensure providing correct bills to your patients. Let’s take a look at the ways you can prevent medical billing errors and ensure that your patients are paying only for the services received.  

Ways to Bill Patients Accurately

• Collect correct patient information – Your staff should be trained enough to collect correct patient information and verify it whenever required. It will keep the patients’ records accurate. From front-end staff to medical billing staff, whoever refers to these records will get the correct information to prepare accurate medical documents. It will allow your practice to prevent the bills with inaccurate patient information. 
• Establish clear in-house communication - Make sure there is a clear communication channel between your front-office staff that is primarily responsible for collecting patient information and the billing staff. It will allow them to cross-check every patient information before the final bill is prepared and the claim is submitted. 
• Inform Patients - Patients are likely to pay if they have been communicated clearly about the exact amount they need to pay beyond their insurance coverage. If your patients are unaware of the amount they are liable to pay, ask your staff to inform them on the very first visit. They should know what their insurance is covering and what they need to pay to you. 
• Hire trained billing staff - If your billing staff is inexperienced or not trained enough, they are likely to make usual billing errors. Make sure you either sit with your billing staff regularly to cross-check all the bills or hire experienced staff that is likely to avoid general billing errors. 

For example - At times, your staff may cross two patients with the same name. To avoid confusion, ask your staff to verify the patient’s address, contact number, SSN, and other details to make sure that you do not bill a patient for the services provided to some other patient with the same name. A trained staff is more likely to follow this process than an inexperienced one. 

• Keep records updated - There have been instances when a patient has been billed twice for the same service. It usually happens when your staff does not update the patients’ records regularly. Keeping your records updated will help you to avoid billing your patients twice for the same service. 
• Outsource Medical Billing Services - The most appropriate and convenient way to ensure that your patients are being billed correctly is by outsourcing medical billing services to professionals. 

CAPLINE MEDICAL BILLING SERVICES offer a team of billing experts that put an end to all billing inaccuracies completely. The team adapts the best and the most updated medical billing practices to make sure that your patients always receive accurate bills, claims are neatly submitted, and your practice is reimbursed properly. 

Remember, no practice likes to lose patients because of inaccurate billing or any other reason. Implementing the above-mentioned steps will increase the list of satisfied patients and eventually revenue.