If you work in healthcare, you understand that medical billing compliance is essential for your practice’s financial stability. Not following the rules can lead to problems like not getting paid, being fined, or even losing your license.
But medical billing is complicated and constantly changing. Healthcare organizations must know and follow federal and state laws, Medicare and Medicaid rules, and private insurance contracts. These rules are always being updated.
Our law firm helps healthcare providers with issues like reimbursement denials, billing problems, and disputes with insurance companies. However, we know that mistakes can cause a lot of financial problems. This blog post discusses why medical billing compliance is so substantial and gives tips to improve your practice’s revenue.
What Is Medical billing compliance?
Medical billing compliance is about following rules and regulations in the healthcare industry. These rules come from federal and state laws, Medicare and Medicaid guidelines, and health insurance policies.
Medical billing compliance ensures that any Primary Care physician uses correct and ethical billing practices.
To achieve medical billing compliance, healthcare organizations use different strategies. Also, they train their staff, conduct regular audits and contract reviews, and use electronic health records systems and billing software.
Why is it important to follow medical billing rules?
Bad things can happen if your healthcare organization doesn’t meet its obligations.
- Charging too much or too little can lead to lost money or legal trouble.
- Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance refusing to pay you.
- Accusations of cheating and mistreatment.
You should never take shortcuts when it comes to coding and following the rules. Even small mistakes can cause big problems for medical providers. If you cheat or mistreat people, it will eventually be discovered, and you’ll face serious consequences.
5 ways to help you meet your regulatory and contractual requirements:
Create a healthcare compliance program: Make a plan covering all the rules and procedures you must follow. This program should help you quickly stop, find, and fix any problems. Some important parts of the program could include:
- Regular training for everyone to learn about compliance
- Systems that improve the quality of clinical records, which can reduce mistakes in coding
- Regular checks and audits to find issues
- A consistent way to report and investigate possible compliance problems
- Standard ways to take action.
- Ongoing evaluations to assess risks.
Use Technology Wisely
Nowadays, many tools and software applications can help healthcare organizations. These tools can help them follow the rules and regulations and also make their work more efficient and profitable. For example, there are computer programs that can help with billing and coding. They can automatically extract information from electronic health records, making the process faster and less prone to mistakes.
However, it’s essential to be careful when using software and apps. You should choose the most suitable programs for your organization and ensure your employees know how to use them properly. If you have any questions or need support, don’t hesitate to ask for help. Researching and preparing before implementing new programs is also a good idea. This will make your experience better in the long run.
Healthcare Audit should be your Regular practice
Perform coding and medical billing audits regularly. Even if you try your best, mistakes can still occur. It’s better for you to find and fix those mistakes on your own rather than waiting for the government or insurance payer to find them. Your team should regularly review claims, medical records, financial records, and other documents to identify issues.
Do not forget to review your program
Make sure to review your healthcare payer contracts regularly. These contracts have complicated language that can be difficult to understand. Unfortunately, this can cause problems with billing and following the rules, and it can lead to mistakes and uncertainties. Don’t just quickly read through your contracts and assume everything will be fine. Take the time to carefully read the details and understand what’s in your contracts.
Respond Promptly when facing denial
When your claims are denied, it’s important to respond quickly. The healthcare industry has a high initial denial rate of around 20%, and many of these claims are never worked on again, even though they can be recovered. If your claim is denied, there’s usually a short time frame to appeal according to the payer contract. Missing deadlines is a common reason for claims to remain unpaid. Therefore, make sure your team acts promptly by reviewing claims for errors, providing any required documents, and resubmitting them on time.
Key Takeaways
- Create a healthcare compliance plan
- Make good use of technology.
- Regularly check your contracts with healthcare payers.
- Conduct frequent audits of coding and billing.
FAQs
What is compliance coding?
Compliance coding is a way to ensure that both external and internal rules are followed. External rules are regulations governments or industry groups set, like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS.
What are the 5 elements of a compliance program?
A global template divides important enforcement and regulatory issues into five main parts: leadership, risk assessment, standards and controls, training and communication, and oversight.