What is the most cost effective billing method for chiropractors?
Whether you are fresh out of graduate school or you are an established chiropractor, you have probably asked yourself if you should collect your money internally or use a third party billing agency. Deciding on in-house or outsourced billing can often be viewed as a big decision. There are definitely a few things you must consider when you are making this decision.
One aspect of billing that you must consider is whether or not your current or future staff can handle the entire financial workload. If you happen to have a staff that has not worked with accounts receivable or taken on financial responsibilities previously, you may need an outside billing team. You must consider what you would like your staff to be accomplishing throughout the work week. If you would rather have them marketing your practice and gaining clientele, then a third party billing team sounds necessary for you.
Speaking of your staff, there is always the issue of training. An employee is usually not great at their job until they have done it for a few months. If you just trained a secretary how to bill for your services for the last 4 months, then they leave you for a different job, you are stuck with the extra duties yourself as you train your new hire for the next 4 months. It goes without asking but just for the record, “As a chiropractor, do you really have time for this?”
Who should use an In-House system for Billing?
In-House billing can be a quality option for an established chiropractor with a high quality staff. If you already have a high client base and a highly trained staff, you may desire an in-house system for billing. If your staff has the expertise and the time to collect the money that is owed to you, then in house makes sense for your practice. If your staff will not be marketing because your client base is efficient, then they may have the time to run your financial department.
“What happens to my Billing when my Practice Grows?”
As a chiropractor, your practice will grow… and so will your billing and collections workload. You should not be worried about your practice growing… It is a good thing! That is why you spend money on marketing… you know that it will increase your profit immensely. But that does not mean that you should be unprepared when it happens. What you did not think about when you began to build your practice is the added work load you will encounter as your revenue rises. The way to prepare for this growth is to outsource your billing… it is very simple. There are too many benefits for outsourcing your billing to ignore them.
“Why Should I Outsource my Billing?”
The real question is why shouldn’t I outsource my billing. Let’s just start with why you picked Chiropractic as a profession… To care for patients and make money. In order for you to spend your time caring for patients, you must not be concentrating on the day-to-day operations of running your practice. If you have a billing staff, your time can be spent doing what you were meant to do… Treat Patients.
A common question a chiropractor encounters is “Why should I hire someone to do what I can do myself?… I don’t want to pay the 8% of monthly collections… that is my hard earned money.” That is your hard earned money and it should be in your pocket! You will not lose this 8% if you outsource your billing… Your billing staff will actually collect more revenue monthly and your profit will increase. Your numbers will rise and your workload will decrease.
The fact of the matter is that the patients don’t want to pay the full dues you are owed… Insurance companies do not want to pay you what you are owed; they want to reject the claim and increase their profit with their float retained… Everybody is looking to make another nickel off you, and it is up to you to acquire your hard earned money. An expert billing team will fight for your money, and you will see the increase in revenue.
Outsourcing your billing and collections can help to eliminate problems and inevitable headaches and financial loss that comes with them.
Conclusion
There is really no right or wrong answer when deciding how to bill for your practice. That being said, there seem to be more reasons to outsource your billing than tackle the project yourself. The decision is ultimately up to you and how you visualize your practice. With the technology in today’s medical field, it only makes sense to utilize these programs that are made to make your life easier. With electronic health records (EHR), your system can interact with your billing team in real time and they can be retrieving your money for that DOS, even before the patient walks out the door.
