Three Questions to Ask Your Pain Management & Surgery Center Billing Service Provider

Making the decision to outsource your pain management billing to a third-party can be difficult, especially when it comes to choosing the right company that can meet the needs of your practice. After all, the performance of the billing company and their overall ability to handle your revenue cycle processes will determine your practice’s financial health.

Before making a final decision about outsourcing, it is important that you ask each potential medical billing partner the following questions. Getting answers will help ensure that the agency you ultimately choose to work with has your practice’s best interests in mind.

1. Will we have access to our data?

Whether your pain management practice chooses to outsource a few medical billing processes or every aspect of billing and collections, it is important for the third-party agency to be transparent and to share critical information with you whenever you need it. Professional pain management billing services will provide access to their system for monitoring and keep records of communications with patients, for example, so that you can monitor quality assurance at all times. Check with your outsourcing partner to see what they provide.

2. Will you provide detailed monthly reports?

Outsourcing pain management billing can help your practice be more hands-off and devote more time to patients. However, you still want to know how your practice’s finances are. Make sure your billing company provides regular reports about your accounts receivables, including how much they’ve collected and how much is still owed. These reports will help you determine how effective the billing company’s efforts are and which areas need improvement.

3. What kinds of fees or service charges will we incur?

Fee structures can vary from one pain management billing service to another; however, most third-party agencies will either request:

1. a percentage of the total amount that they collect
2. a flat fee per claim

Agencies that choose to charge a flat rate may also offer other accounting and administrative services that can be of real benefit to your practice. The fee structure that provides the greatest financial benefit to your pain management organization will depend on the amount of money you expect to collect each month. Be sure to review the terms of your contract carefully and ask questions if you don’t understand how something works.

5 Star Billing Services, Inc. has provided professional medical billing, collection and administrative services for pain management practices for many years. Contact us today to start reducing denials, decreasing costs, and improving cash flow.