Special Services for the Healthcare Industry

On the back of the booming Healthcare Industry, the American economy is poised for a brighter future. Among all the industries, healthcare has set the tone for the US economy. Over the years, the country has seen countless numbers of hospitals and clinics expanding across the nation.

In the past, healthcare firms were comprised of very few specialists. Now, with the developing state-of-the-art infrastructure, a wide variety of healthcare professions dot the landscape…from the conventional general practitioner, to new cutting-edge specialties like radiology. Along with this expansion in medical professions, comes the simultaneous growth in support systems. For instance, many of these professions have to go through rigorous day-to-day scheduling, just to keep track of all the patient records.

 

The Solutions

Today, there are fresh new ideas to help relieve the stress inherent in the medical office profession. A great number of healthcare business services are readily available in the modern marketplace. Alleviating a majority of stress can not only simplify the overall healthcare back-office process, but can provide great return on investment. The sheer number of these business services available today, is a reflection of the ubiquitous nature of healthcare units. One should research the appropriate and relevant business service. So, better planning is required. This will build better rapport with your respective healthcare business service provider. Since healthcare business services are in great demand, it is imperative to make sure to put emphasis on the efficiency and reliability of each and every service.

 

Choosing the Right Healthcare Service

As mentioned above, the importance of looking at the efficiency and reliability of each service is of utmost importance. Before you put your thinking caps on, a brief guide will help you attain an idea of the kind of service you may need.

Medical Transcription Services

Among all the business services available in the healthcare industry, the most commonly used is the medical transcription service.

Medical transcription is the conversion of a voiced-based recording, dictated by either a general practitioner or physician, to a written format. A doctor, using a recording device, dictates a brief but thorough account of each and every patient appointment. The medical transcriptionist then “transcribes” the recording to a text document. In the medical field, these reports are known as ‘transcripts’.

Without medical transcription services, it is almost impossible to keep a track of the interaction between doctor and patient. This type of service helps to document the relationship and keep it transparent. For instance, if a patient claims that he or she was misled during a health consultation, there is always hard evidence to either back-up the claim or refute it.

Online medical transcriptions have made use of today’s technology so a physician can access confidential patient information anytime and anywhere. Thanks to the internet, transcribing data and information to a secure server is now commonplace. Many renowned companies which initially offered manual transcription have tapped into online medical transcription. This innovation in the field of healthcare office services has not only been effective in many clinics and hospital around the US, but also abroad.

If you are one those who feel medical transcription is suitable for you healthcare business, it will help overcome the burden of patient information tracking.

Medical Billing

Forget all the labor-intensive and tedious work involved with organizing all the receipts and invoices. The more you prolong these tedious billing activities; the less you are going to get accomplished. This is where third-party billing vendors come into action. Many healthcare business services companies have a medical billing specialist. He or she acts as a mediator between the healthcare firm and the insurance company. The medical biller has become an integral part of the billing cycle.

The first step taken by a medical billing specialist is to qualify a patient’s medical insurance. Prior to a medical examination by a physician, the medical billing specialist contacts the insurance companies, Medical and/or Medicaid to confirm that the patient’s insurance information is up-to-date and in good standing. On behalf of the doctor, clinic or hospital, the medical billing specialist will receive payments, reconcile accounts and maintain account balances. It is the responsibility of this person to communicate and resolve any disputes and follow-up on those claims which have been delayed or rejected.

Through the advent of latest and intuitive technology, Medical billings companies have switched to e-billing due to the slow nature of the manual billing method. Since the launch of the HIPAA Compliance Act, strict adherence to e-medical billing became a priority. Today, sending the claims can be done through secure electrical means.

Thanks to medical billing programs, procedures are assigned codes based on the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Manual and diagnoses are coded based on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9) by automation. Furthermore, this software optimizes the bill generating speed and patient-tracking speed. Patient and facility trends can also be fast-tracked.

 

The Future

With so much innovation and execution of new ideas in the healthcare field, the outlook for a paperless office is not too far off in the distant future. Digital recording devices coupled to computers, online digital transcription and online medical billing all are playing a part in the future of the healthcare industry. And there is nothing on the horizon which indicates that any one of these three elements will go away anytime soon.

 

 

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