Before a medical practice decides to invest in Electronic medical billing software it has to make the decision if it wants to continue to do the billing for the practice in house or do it online. If it is already doing its billing online and wants to make a change then it has to decide which added or new features it wants in its Electronic medical billing software program and does it want to include revenue cycle management within its program.
There are some questions that a medical practice should ask before it invests in any Electronic medical billing software program. One of them is what is the total cost of ownership for the life of the system? And does this include any updates or upgrades as they become available. Cost has to be a component of any medical practice decision to purchase an online system. If a medical practice does not know what it costs them to do their own billing then this cost may come as a big surprise to them. When a medical practice is evaluating these costs it also has to include any start up costs. Most software programs are designed to work with most computer operating systems but if an office has an old outdated computer that may even be dial up then it may have to include in the start up cost the cost of a complete new computer system. This will add to the initial cost for them to buy one of the programs and has to be taken into consideration.
You have to consider that a large part of office management is the paying of office staff salaries. Then add the cost of storing documents and old paperwork. And part of this cost is keeping these pieces of paper secure since they contain private patient data. So in many cases an online system may be a big cost savings for a medical practice. But electronic billing is one of the cornerstones of medical practice management systems. With electronic billing, in theory, there are faster collections, fewer denials and less administrative work involved. The office staff will have to go through a training cycle and big learning curve if they have never used an online billing system before. Older staff employees may not be very happy with the change but if the system is very user friendly then they too will catch on fairly quickly.
If the office does a lot of Medicare claims then it will have to determine if the new program can handle Durable Medical Equipment billing. This is a separate part of the Medicare claims program and has to be invoiced separately. Also any user fees have to be evaluated before any purchase can be completed. If the user fees are high it may not make sense for a small medical practice to buy that particular program. There are plenty of choices out there that are available with lots of options aimed at specific types of practices so choose wisely.
