Ambulatory surgical centers treat crucial but non-life-threatening conditions. They serve patients from about 9 broad specialties, with orthopedic, pain, ophthalmology, and endoscopy being the busiest ones. And when so many specialties overlap, ASC billing operations need to be dynamic.
Out of all the various factors that make practice management difficult for ASCs, billing, and reimbursements are probably the most challenging.
But there are ways to deal with these challenges. And for that, it is important to be aware of the issues that contribute to these problems.
Top 3 factors impacting ambulatory surgical center billing operations:
1) Declining reimbursement for ASCs:
Medical procedures performed at ambulatory surgical centers have a history of underpayment. For most ASC procedures, payments are almost half that of Hospital Out-patient Departments.
Despite competing with HOPDs & hospitals, reimbursement rates are low, and authorization denials are higher for ambulatory surgical centre billing claims.
2) Staffing issues:
Staff shortages have become worse after the COVID-19 pandemic. To make matters worse, rising expenses on salaries and benefits for admin functions have made ASC billing operations expensive.
This is a tricky situation. Due to fluctuating reimbursements, ASCs lose a lot of money. And by leaking revenues, it becomes even more difficult to improve cash reserves for other uses including partnering with ambulatory surgical center billing services
3) Ambulatory surgical center billing errors:
Industry reports suggest that about 30% of ASC billing claims have errors. So many errors result in missed revenues worth billions of dollars. The most common billing error for ASC claims is incorrect use of modifiers and Place of Service codes.
To avoid these issues, providers can either invest in improving billing operations, or they can seek support from experts like ambulatory surgical center billing companies.
Stay Ahead of Challenges with Ambulatory Surgical Center Billing Services
Billing challenges for ambulatory surgical centers are multi-dimensional. Without having expert knowledge of ASC-specific billing regulations & payment policies for different health plans, it is virtually impossible to grow revenues.
And so, providers are trying out different approaches to avoid these problems. One very promising solution for ASC operators’ admin problems is ambulatory surgical center billing services. These experts offer professional billing expertise and services that can be customized as per ASC operators’ requirements.
So if you are looking for competent admin support for your ASC, here are a few ASC billing services that cost just $7/hour:
- Insurance & eligibility checks
- Prior auth operations
- Billing & claims submission
- Payment follow up & collection
To learn more about how our ambulatory surgical centre billing services have helped improve billing efficiency and revenue collections in two months for a Texas-based provider, please contact Sunknowledge Services Inc., a HIPAA-compliant healthcare revenue cycle management organization serving US providers and payers since 2007.