Whether you’re a clinic, a small practice or a large hospital, you will have to consider medical coding outsourcing at some point. The cash flow and payments of the organization you’re part of all depend on fast submission and coding of the services you provide to your insurance providers.
Medical coding outsourcing could be the way of ensuring that this is done effectively while saving you time and money.
What is Remote Medical Coding?
Some situations require that you contract and rely on an outside party to do medical coding rather than have the coders as part of your staff. You could either choose to contract a medical coding company or a consultant depending on your needs and those of your organization. Medical coding is extremely time consuming, therefore, outsourcing the service ensures that you and your staff save the time needed to work more efficiently.
The medical coding company that you outsource to will oversee training, paying, recruiting and certification of the staff needed to do coding for you. The field often changes becoming more specialized with time, it is vital to continue training and education for the services you outsource. Companies who you will outsource your medical coding services will ensure that they have such programs in place to ensure quality services to their clients.
How It Works
After a physician completes a procedure, they will then send the medical charts to the coding company electronically. In turn, the medical coding company reads the content, codes it then sends them back.
It is essential to note that these companies will review the coded charts before they are sent back to any hospital. This process ensures that the coding is accurate and compliant. Additionally, the process ensures that there are not any rejected claims which creates better compensation from the insurance company.
Why It’s Better to Hire Overseas Coders
Even though physicians are sometimes skeptical about hiring medical coding services from overseas, there are usually companies that provide high quality work. They are required to go through the same certifications and trainings that domestic coders go through.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a deficiency in the number of medical coders in the United Sates, even though overseas coders are becoming increasingly popular. The most significant benefit of hiring overseas coding services rather than domestic ones is that they aren’t as costly and could potentially cost up to 40% less than the amount domestic coders charge.
Compare the Costs
Before you hire either an overseas or domestic coding company, ensure that you know the benefits and downsides of hiring one over the other. For instance, when you have an in-house medical coder, there are overheads you will incur such as their salary, benefits, office space costs, managing, training, and scheduling as well.
Once you’ve got these costs at hand, compare them to those of hiring an overseas company. Additionally, you should compare the efficiency of your in-house coder as compared to hiring an overseas coding company. It is also vital that you consider the volume of the coding required and whether your in-house coder can meet the targets in good speed.
