With new additions introduced in ICD and CPT codes recently, coding has become a complex task with frequent slips. Subsequently number of claim rejections/ denials have increased in a dramatic way. Errors are bound to happen with coding, if one is not experienced or updated with the process. More and more health care facilities and private practices are escalating the process to Medical coding services day by day.

What is it that makes you consider outsourcing the coding process?

  • Coding involves usage of expensive coding software’s and obviously that includes spending on computers and machineries that are needed along with it. Outsourcing the process will be a good way to avoid that extra expenditure

  • Hiring certified coders and adding manpower to you clinic is a burden on your monthly payroll. Considering the employee benefits, periodic hikes and other perks, keeping in-house coding experts is not a good idea for small practices.

  • Every time there is an employee turnover, you will be required to search and hire a competent coder, get him/her trained to adapt your speciality of practice which surely is added work

  • Coding is a process that requires attention to detail, proficiency in medical terminologies and ability to identify and discriminate disease conditions. Wrong codes if written, it badly affects the billing process and claim

  • Over coding or up - coding is one such scenario where the staff ends up assigning codes more complex and costlier services than that the patient was actually provided. If caught in the audit process, the state or the insurance companies might demand payback or penalties for the excess amount claimed

  • Under coding / missing codes – It is failure to identify a report in the healthcare document as code-able. Every missing code is a bill unprocessed and zero claim. Valuable service provided goes unpaid as an outcome, so much to your loss.

  • Many at times, instead of assigning one specific code to an entire procedure, staff end up coding each small steps of the procedure due to ignorance. However, this is considered unethical and bound for penalty.

  • Compliance issues are the most crucial mistakes committed with coding. Both ICD and CPT codes are periodically revised. The staff at the clinic might be unaware of this. Outdated references need updating. Not being complaint with latest regulations impairs claim submission. There will be rejection of claim and there will be loss of revenue.

  • Once the diagnoses and treatment part is under the way, coding should be done promptly to follow up the payment part. If the coding process gets delayed, there will be huge backlog of files unbilled. This further delays the claim submission and entire revenue cycle of the facility gets jammed.

Outsourcing to Medical coding services gives you a bunch of benefits like

Quality in work is of paramount importance at professional coding services. They hire only certified coders and train them to stay updated with the latest ICD/CPT coding protocols. Each document comes out flawless after repeated error- checks. Being experienced in the area, they have a list of all the possible errors encountered while coding a health record. Based on that, an audit is conducted to tweak it to perfection.

Outsourcing the coding part is more cost effective and affordable when the inflow of medical records is huge and you need to avoid backlog. Medical coding services offer quite affordable packages for facilities and working together as team boost profitability, as speed at work matters for the revenue cycle.

Before starting to assign the codes, the method adopted is to conduct a pre-coding check of health record to eliminate any errors, missing information, repetition of data and other ambiguities. It is done by experts who are well versed in deciphering and interpreting medical lingo.

Professional coding services are highly complaint with privacy and security aspects of the patients. Strict adherence to HIPPA is monitored and ensured. Personal and health related information of the patient will be carefully dealt with and stored in the company databases according to the protocol.

When the coding is done to perfection, billing process turns hassle free and so is the claim preparation.  A clear and crisp claim request is what the insurance companies are looking for and the chances for denials are minimal.  Error free claims bring faster approvals to reimbursements.

When it comes to speciality practices, coding takes experience in handling some specific health records and diagnostic data. Professional services in coding have coders specially trained to fit the needs of the speciality. Services will be made available customized to your coding needs.

The Medical coding services are quite result oriented in their approach to coding. The goal in mind being; getting the claim processed precisely in the very first go, doing whatever is necessary to speed up the claim process and get paid for the service provided at the healthcare facility at the earliest. In every aspect, it is a win - win.