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Thinking about increasing revenue through your mental billing services? This blog is the perfect place to learn how you can do that. We discussed mental health billing and its benefits for hospitals in detail.
We also covered how outsourcing the process can make things easy for doctors. It also allows them to focus completely on patient care. Let’s start unpacking the details!
Furthermore, maximize your mental health revenue with reliable mental health billing services, providing accurate and efficient billing solutions. Find out how to enhance your financial performance and compliance. Explore our mental health billing outsourcing options!
Overview Of Mental Health Billing
Mental health billing creates bills and assigns codes for mental services. These services include both medication and therapy. Assigning codes to them can be difficult for coders. They have to use modifier codes. These codes highlight unique services for mental treatment.
Hospitals also make some financial decisions. They ensure accurate payments for their mental services. This way, hospitals can see revenue growth.
You have to treat mental illnesses with thorough strategies. Doctors have to carefully provide medication and care coordination. You must also conduct therapy sessions with your patients. Hospitals remain aware of the ways to treat mental disorders.
Mental health services include counseling, psychotherapy, and other processes. Emotional and psychological well-being intervention is another key process. These services have two types of codes. They are evaluation management and psychiatric evaluation.
Doctors use EM codes whenever they check any new medical problem. These codes provide three documentations. They include the patient history and examination. Medical diagnosis is the other document.
Sessions for mental treatment can vary in duration. PE codes include EM services to assess diagnoses. You can do this to reduce claim denials. Hospitals can also make accurate invoices and receive payments.
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How Mental Health Billing Service Helps
Mental health billing service helps hospitals in a lot of ways. Let’s take a look at them:
1. Insurance Eligibility Verification
Hospitals have to verify the insurance policy of their patients. Patients must be eligible to get psychiatry services. Patient plans should include pre-authorization requirements.
You can use these details to calculate copayments and deductibles. This way, psychiatry billing increases cash flow. Hospitals also receive payments on time.
2. Charge And Demographic Entries
Charge entry is a vital process in mental health billing. It calculates the total amount of payments received by hospitals. You can enter those charges into patient accounts.
A separate team should work on patient demographics entry. They should only enter the correct data into their system. Top billing services include high-quality patient demographics and charge entries.
3. Billing Analysis
A billing team reviews the files of psychiatric patients. These files contain test reports, transcriptions, and images. The team also submits verified psychiatry codes and medical services.
Invalid submissions cause claim denials. Denials lead to payment delays and work burdens. The process of billing also gets difficult.
4. Accounts Receivable Follow Up
Hospitals also have to follow up on their accounts receivable. It can get difficult and time-consuming. You may have to inquire about unpaid services from your patients.
Following up can reduce your accounts receivable days. You should also appeal underpaid or refused claims. They can get reimbursed if you act by the book.
5. Denial And Collection Analysis
Claim denials cause financial losses for hospitals. So you should track and resubmit yours. You must first identify the reason for denials. Then you should fix it and resubmit those claims.
Insurance companies usually deny claims due to lack of information. You must provide more details to convince them.
You can do that by tracking your denied claims. Then the reason for their denials should undergo analysis to draw conclusions.
6. Payment Posting
Payment posting identifies your issues with insurance companies. They may deny your claims due to various reasons. A standalone billing team handles such issues.
Hospitals ensure the entry of all payment details in their system. They look over key documents like Explanation of Benefits for this. Then they update their data into patient accounts.
7. Provider Credentialing
Provider credentialing manages the revenue cycle of hospitals. Its functionality is a mix of hospitals and insurers. Patients use insurance cards to pay for their mental treatments. Hospitals can also get paid for their services.
This service processes payments faster. You can get more referrals and manage revenue loss. Hospitals can also identify the trends required to reduce denials.
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8. Mental Health Billing Software
A billing software can manage the finances and many other processes of hospitals. You may have to spend a lot of time doing manual tasks.
Automated systems like software increase efficiency. You can assign codes and track claims faster. Hospitals can also understand their patient needs. Doctors can gain experience in working with modern software.
Life Before Managed Billing
There were many issues before hospitals started to use managed billing. They include financial problems, work burden, and revenue loss.
1. Financial Problems
Doctors faced various financial problems before they installed managed billing. Billing processes were inefficient. Payments got delayed. Hospitals were submitting incomplete claims and lost a ton of revenue. You could not focus on patient care.
2. Work Burden
Hospitals had an immense work burden as well. They could not manage mental health billing. Doctors had to focus on insurance codes and claim submissions at the same time. They got regularly burned out. Their medical practice also took a hit.
3. Revenue Loss
Medical practice had no structure. Hospitals could not manage their revenue. They could not increase their earnings. Inefficient billing and financial issues led to revenue loss. As a result, doctors were unable to effectively allocate their resources.
Life After Managed Billing
Managed billing introduced several advantages for hospitals. They could make their billing processes more efficient. Doctors were able to focus more on patient care. Hospitals increased their revenue through structured billing processes.
1. Increase In Efficiency
Managed billing improved billing processes through automated systems. It also assigned dedicated professionals to mental health services. Hospitals became more efficient. Doctors also got free from work burdens.
2. Focus on Patient Care
Managed billing enabled doctors to focus on patient care. They did not have to worry about any billing problems. Hospitals were able to increase the quality of their mental health services. These changes improved their patient outcomes.
3. Increase In Revenue
Managed billing brought structure to the billing processes of hospitals. They learned from reporting and analytics. Doctors expertly managed their mental health practices.
This led to an increase in their revenue. They eliminated their financial problems. Hospitals could now focus on professional development and practice growth.
The Benefits Of Outsourcing Mental Health Billing Service
You can get many benefits by outsourcing your mental health billing services. Let’s take a look at them in detail:
1. Data Security
Outsourcing companies use top security tools to protect your data. They keep your data within their account management systems. Nowadays, medical data is at risk of loss or misplacement.
Hospitals have to track the safety of their data. They must maintain good relationships with their patients. You should create a secure environment for your patients as well. Such practices can earn certifications for staying compliant with the set regulations.
2. High Accuracy and Quality
You should ensure an increase in payments for your mental health billing services. Hospitals can make accurate invoices for their mental treatments. Outsourcing companies can avoid revenue losses.
They verify medical documents to prevent negligent billing. They can also check the codes assigned to your services. You must also follow the updated insurance policies for high-quality billing.
3. Short Turnaround
Hospitals do not have to wait after submitting claims. Outsourcing billing services ensures accurate payments for mental treatments. Third-party entities complete billing tasks faster. They also keep your payments safe while you focus on patient care.
4. Scalability
Hospitals should always look to scale their mental health services. Scalability makes billing services more efficient. You just have to be ready to make the necessary changes.
You can bring other qualified professionals like doctors onboard this. Outsourcing companies can increase the rate of your patient cases. and billing needs without loss of efficiency.
5. Cheap Pricing Options
You can receive discounts from outsourcing companies. You can also customize their services to suit your practice’s needs. You can enjoy significant benefits without spending much. Hospitals can also receive some add-on services for their mental treatments.
What To Look For When Outsourcing Your Mental Health Billing Service
Hospitals should check many factors before selecting their outsourcing partner. These factors include expertise and reporting. Customizable solutions, customer support, compliance, and security are other key factors.
1. Expertise
You should be careful when outsourcing billing services for mental treatments. You must look for expert providers in this field. Preferred companies will have a relevant track record. They should know how to assign mental health codes.
They must also have experience in fulfilling insurance requirements. Such providers can easily integrate with you. Outsourcing your services to them will increase your revenue.
2. Compliance and Security
Hospitals deal with sensitive patient data. That is why they have to follow strict security measures. Your outsourcing partner should follow the set medical standards.
An example is HIPAA which protects patient data. Its standards manage the medical details of patients. They increase confidence and trust between hospitals and patients.
3. Reporting
Hospitals should be aware of how their outsourcing partners manage their billing processes. They use that information to make important decisions. So those partners should provide comprehensive reports to hospitals.
These reports are about payment rates and claims processing details. The partners can also mention any underlying issues.
Hospitals should create a reporting system to collaborate with their partners. It should enable them to make slight adjustments. This is how you can increase your revenue with outsourcing.
4. Customizable Solutions
Hospitals provide unique mental health services. There is no one solution for all their problems. Your outsourcing partners should offer customizable solutions. Each solution must apply to a mental health billing issue.
Such solutions include telehealth billing support. They can also provide many. A flexible partner will adjust to your changing requirements.
5. Customer Support
Outsourcing companies should effectively communicate your billing services. They must have responsive and dedicated customer support. Your partner should understand the importance of timely responses.
They should address your concerns and provide updates. These practices create a collaborative working relationship.
How Is Mental Health Billing Different From Medical Billing?
Mental health billing is different from medical billing in various aspects. Let’s take a look at them in detail:
1. Front-Office Staff
A dedicated medical staff usually manages medical billing. It takes the burden off doctors. They only focus on patient care.
But mental health billing mostly involves small hospitals and clinics. These organizations do not have a separate front-office staff. Their doctors also have to manage billing for their mental treatments.
2. Standardized Procedures
Medical billing can include similar procedures and tests for the same patients. Whereas, mental health practitioners provide customized services.
Mental procedures can get complex. Their treatments have to be fluid to cater for that complexity. Many doctors call medical billing “plug-and-play”.
This term refers to the repetitive procedures for a range of patients. But, mental healthcare has a complicated billing process.
3. Superbills
Hospitals can standardize medical billing to combine several procedures into one superbill. The nature of mental health services varies a lot.
So, superbill creation is a challenge for them. The result is a longer, more arduous billing process.
4. Session Length
The codes assigned to medical billing are based on their services. An example is the CPT code 36415 for a blood draw. Mental health care codes are assigned based on the amount of time they take.
It means that there are variations in those codes as well. Hospitals bill codes that match with the amount of time spent with patients.
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The Bottom Line
This blog focused on how mental health billing services can increase revenue. We learned how they help the billing staff and doctors. We also discussed outsourcing billing services for mental treatments.
Health Quest Billing has a medical billing team to work with you on your billing processes. Contact us today to find out how you can make money through your mental procedures.