Can Your Medical Practice Outsource Your Billing To An Overseas Company?

By Elvis Chastings


Medical billing outsourcing is becoming rather popular today. There is an overwhelming amount of billing that goes on in the United States on a day to day basis. It is estimated that nearly 25% of all healthcare companies will outsource their billing within the next ten years. It is not shock since physicians are now seeing the tough decisions that go into ICD-10 billing. Today, a biller has to be ICD-10 certified and know a lot about utilization management, revenue cycle management and benefit verification.

A lot of overseas companies will make promises saying that they can get you higher returns and save you lots of money on your investment. However, you may not be aware of the fact that they don't often comply with USA laws. On October 1, 2015, the new codes were released for medical billers. We went from using ICD-9 to using ICD-10. There are over 100,000 codes in ICD-10. ICD-9 only had 14,000. This is a big difference since we have yet to see the full results of how medical billers will handle this.

Outsourcing your company requires important decisions. If you choose to outsource your billing, you will see success because these billers have been studying the field long before ICD-10 was release. Is it ever a good idea to outsource your billing to an overseas company? The answer to this question is hard to answer since you must look at several factors.

Does the overseas medical billing company have certified ICD-10 coders and people that work in billing? If the answer is yes, then it's important to know that you have to see if they meet all of HIPAA law requirements. If they do not, then you cannot use them. As you already may or may not know, medical billing software must comply with all USA regulations. Medical billing in the USA is regulated by the government. If you should violate these laws, your practice could get shut down and you could have to pay hefty fines. It is important to use an attorney that knows about medical billing if you are thinking about outsourcing your billing to a company overseas.

It is important to have someone check out the laws of the country in reference to medical billing before choosing to work with them. Some countries offer you cheaper prices but do not comply with USA law. Their software is often not legally built. The software must comply with all HIPAA laws as well. These are important things to think about when you outsource your billing. In the end, will you really be saving money or possibly putting your patient's records at risk?




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