The challenges of Urgent Care billing
Urgent Care facilities are among the busiest destinations for receiving medical services. What makes them more so is the fact that they are usually the first place to visit when somebody requires an unplanned visit for getting immediate medical attention. The reasons for visiting an Urgent Care center can be many. They could typically range from getting treated for an animal bite, to seeking medical care for an accident, to getting a vaccine dose. It is largely due to the varied nature of services rendered by Urgent Care centers, and also owing to the fact that anybody can walk into such a facility without any prior appointment and get treated without long delays, that make Urgent Care centers so popular.
It is no wonder then that with hundreds of patients walking into a facility every day on a typical basis, Urgent Care billing is serious business. The pressure is usually more than other places. And, of course, every important and necessary needs to be captured before the patient leaves, the eligibility of the patient’s insurance coverage needs to be verified, and afterwards, a perfect claim needs to be created, complete with all the pertinent codes and submitted to the concerned payer (the insurance company) in time. Therefore, it is safe to assume that speed, accuracy and a thorough knowledge of payer norms, are some of the essential hallmarks that define productive Urgent Care billing.
Finding the right resources
However, there is a small problem, and it lies in finding competent and skilled billing professionals to work for you. Even if you are able to recruit some, you will find that their salaries can be astronomical. Blame it on the pandemic that has caused many to change or leave their billing jobs, thereby creating an acute labor shortage, and also on the soaring inflation, keeping one’s operational cost within control is an essential concern for all Urgent Care facilities.
A part of the crisis can be mitigated by engaging third party billing organizations. These specialized agencies have a ready pool of trained resources (billers, coders, accounts receivable experts and so on) who can work remotely on your accounts, completing your billing in no time and securing the desired reimbursement from insurance companies – all at a cost that is way lower than a regular, in-house staff.
This is huge cost-saving step for any Urgent Care center and can actually help in reducing missed payments and lost revenue. If you are an Urgent Care business and profitability really matters to you, strategic outsourcing of key Urgent Care billing processes is an option that you definitely need to explore.
