How Technology is Shaping the Future of Medical Billing and Coding
Once upon a time, the diagnostic process and the patient treatment used to be complicated and required a lot of effort and resources to get through the process. Now software is eating the world, as they say, advancements in technology have allowed the development of innovative medical devices and equipment that have simplified virtually every medical procedure thus allowing us to improvise as well as enhance the quality of treatment. And these rapidly changing technological advancements have instigated an undeniable enhancement in the field of medical billing and coding as well. Medical billing software automatically tracks and integrates accounting functions, including accounts payable and accounts receivable.
The same is the case with the medical coding as it was known to be a lethargic process including a lot of paperwork, and the coders were known for manually transcribing each data related to a patient’s visit into an electronic code in previous days, whereas it all has now changed in the last few years by the use of efficient technology that has introduced soft wares for all this hassle.
The Role of Digital Technology in Healthcare:
Digital technology has significantly helped in wide healthcare functions such as data collection, research, medical billing and coding, remote monitoring, compliance with health regulations, and timely diagnosis and treatment of diseases. The biggest advantage of using technology is streamlining each function, saving time, reducing mechanical paperwork, and removing any error that can affect the entire medical process.
How technology is shaping the future of medical coding?
Healthcare providers such as a hospital or a physician’s clinics are responsible for delivering appropriate healthcare facilities to the patients and managing their finances to pay the healthcare providers’ salaries and control the cost of treatment, which includes procedural treatment and supplies and payment of overheads. In earlier times all these processes were laborious enough and needed a lot of paperwork and workforce to get it done but now technological advances have made it turn all of them into a streamlined process known as Revenue Cycle Management.
What is Revenue Cycle Management?
The revenue cycle management (RCM) is a core process of every medical practice as it ensures that the patients are charged correctly, and more importantly, the healthcare providers such as doctors, surgeons, nurses, therapists, lab technicians, and allied healthcare workers are paid correctly for rendering their expert services. As it also allows the hospital/ any healthcare service to evaluate their performance and the quality of healthcare services delivered. The revenue cycle process starts with patient registration and ends when the healthcare provider receives full payment for providing the medical services. Medical billing and medical coding are both different processes but interlinked and crucial for a smooth medical revenue cycle management. However, the most basic way to explain the purpose of RCM in healthcare is that it unites the business management and clinical side of a healthcare provider organization with the effective and immediate use of technology as RCM combines administrative data with healthcare data to ensure each patient is taken care of and the facility receives its fair dues.
Medical Coding
The process of taking a patient’s diagnostic and treatment notes and converting them into correct alphanumeric codes for accurate billing and record-keeping is called ‘medical coding.’ The different types of codes include Current Procedural Codes (CPT) codes, International Classification of Disease (ICT) codes, and Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes. Over the past 20 years, the usage of technology in coding systems has steadily increased across the healthcare industry as it is evident that it has let a lot of medical coding businesses flourish in no time, along with the increasing complexity of coding diagnosis and treatments have become much easier. Some medical coders are now working hand-in-hand with AI-enhanced computer-assisted coding systems to identify and validate the correct codes.
Medical Billing
Once the coding is completed, the process of generating correct patient claims or invoices based on coding and sending them to insurance companies for payments is called ‘medical billing.’ The insurance companies will approve or deny payments based on codes. Any payment for medical services not covered in the insurance plan will be sent to the patient. The billing process begins as soon as the patient sets up an appointment with a medical practice. Also not forgetting to mention that by the use of more efficient and accurate technology the billing process will improve the patient experience by ensuring that they are not overcharged or go through unnecessary requirements during their medical treatment.
The Purpose of Using Medical Billing and Coding Software:
Until the 2000s, most of the medical coding and billing was done with an amount of paperwork first for coding and then billing the claim. The paperwork increases if the insurance company denial of payments due to coding or billing error
Undoubtedly, Medical billing is a meticulous task and requires valuable time, and in times of a fast technological world, it can be difficult for medical practices to train and recruit professionals who can handle both the coding and billing tasks efficiently and claims not correctly processed can directly impact the revenue cycle. So in that case hospital, and billing software solutions are redefining the entire claim processing and payment collection task one at a time The best advantage is streamlining the process and reducing errors, and the medical staff can focus on managing better care for the patients.
Electronic Health Records (EHR) have also been quite valuable in the healthcare industry, especially for medical practitioners. EHR help to maintain a clear and complete patient record as compared to paperwork.
About Trucare
Trucare is a state-of-the-art medical billing partner, that helps your healthcare business thrive. We are making healthcare more efficient, one claim at a time. TruCare Billing offers a full suite of revenue cycle management (RCM) services, specializing in medical billing for practices and medical businesses of all sizes.
Why Us?
Focused: Dedicated Practice Management Specialists
Experienced: Experienced Revenue Cycle Management
Specialized: HIPAA Certified, Speciality Billers
Cutting Edge: Technology Driven — No BS or Redundancies
Resourceful: Always Ahead of the Compliance Curve
Affordable: No client too big or too small. Rates as low as 2.49%.
To know more;
Call us: +1 888–520–2515
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