The process of medical billing and practice management has always been a time-consuming task in the field of clinical practice. Undoubtedly, the EHR systems have reduced and simplified healthcare providers’ human efforts while streamlining their working processes effectively. This is why the healthcare industry is changing, and so are the health providers’ services. They have now started to look for better systems to manage their practice. A recent report says that 89% of providers have agreed that the EHR forms the core of their practice and dominates their decision-making process for selecting a management system.
And this is not all! With simpler EHR, the search and need for intelligent medical billing solutions has also become challenging which has been made easier with its integration with EHR. This integration is a boon with numerous advantages.
Let us delve into the obvious but unsaid benefits of integrated EHR with medical billing software. But before starting, let us also understand what an integrated EHR and medical billing system are.
An Integrated EHR and Medical Billing System
The Electronic Health Records (EHR) integration is defined as the process of accessing medical records seamlessly across all the electronic software solutions. For medical billing systems, this process might look a little complex and requires the HL7 interfaces to exchange the parameters like demographics, patient chart details, charge codes, encounter sheets, patient notes, billing cycle, and more. This would ensure that no data is duplicated and is seamlessly merged with the existing EHR system.
Over the years, integrated EHR and medical billing system received immense popularity. In fact, according to a recent report produced by Fact.MR, the EHR market is expected to rise up to US $23.78 billion in 2022 and anticipate a positive CAGR of 4.5% and attain a value of US$41.8 billion by 2032
Let us now know the benefits of an integrated EHR and hospital billing software.
Improved Reimbursement Rate
Claim denials are common!
The US healthcare providers lose $262 billion annually due to claim denials. The primary reasons for such claim rejections and denials are claim form errors, code mismatch, and missed claim submission due dates but are limited to these. The claim form errors constitute around 40% and 80% of medical bill errors and are the most common reason for claim denials.
These issues have majorly surfaced due to manual data input, improper software settings, and untrained staff, which is common in otherwise healthcare billing software. With the help of electronic medical billing software with EHR, the providers can:
- Maintain patient data at one location.
- Set notifications for claim submission as per the deadlines.
- Save time with the pre-filled patient information in the healthcare billing software.
- Set the coding and clinical documentation in one place.
Integrating healthcare medical billing systems into your EHR system would avoid the bulk of manual work like entering the exact details into two different programs and task redundancies, further preventing manual errors, coding errors, and more.
With a comprehensive EHR solution combined with medical billing and coding software, it’s time to improve reimbursement rates.
Improved Interoperability
To avail of the federal incentive programs, the providers and hospitals must prove the meaningful use of certified EHR technology across the market. By integrating the EHR with practice management billing software, the providers are improving patient care and data security while maintaining data centralization.
The term interoperability is not only about seamless communication between external systems; it can also be used to maintain data in one centralized system and seamlessly enable the claim filing process. With the EHR billing integrations being highly interoperable, this allows data sharing with providers and practitioners with access rights. This enables the sensitive information to stay confidential while the data and its analysis allow the third parties for patient care and improvement purposes.
This interoperability reduces the data entry check-points and human errors at the most. A robust and flexible centralised system prevents security breaches while allowing providers to handle sensitive patient information without hiccups.
Reduced Billing Workloads
With an integrated EHR and medical billing software, the medical billing specialists would spend less time filing claims. With an integrated system, the coding and documentation are directly fetched from EHR, which saves the time of copying the data. The system will also prompt the physicians to complete these activities even during patient visits. This would reduce the after-visit work for the providers and billing staff.
There are many small-level hospitals and providers wherein the costs are only increasing due to these billing complications. This is why many medical billing software companies have switched to medical billing software for small businesses while easing the process of coding and documentation with claims submissions on a timely basis.
Reduce Coding Errors and Paperwork
With human comes human errors!
With the integrated EHR software with billing, the patient data will be transmitted to the billing system automatically, which will let the EMR Medical Specialists generate cleaner claims. This removes the human error chances while developing billing sheets and entering codes, enhancing the turnaround time.
The integrated EHR with billing software will also provide rest to the clinical and healthcare staff who are more or less dedicated to filling the forms and performing the claims process. This reduced workload will enable them to focus on providing better healthcare services which was otherwise not happening.
Patient Satisfaction
Patient satisfaction is one of the primary aims of any healthcare provider. Billing process automation and claim error elimination will improve the patient satisfaction rates for the existing patients. With the help of the insurance eligibility verification feature in billing software, the practitioner will have a clear idea of the covered services in the patients’ insurance plans at the scheduling stage.
This will be an essential step to avoid to and fros while the billing process starts. The EHR integrated billing system will help clinics inform the patients about the incurring expenses in insurance coverage which will further increase their satisfaction levels.
Parting Words
More time is spent on inefficient medical billing processes and systems; less time is left to devote themselves to patients. This is why an EHR integration becomes an essential component for deciding which practice management solution to choose. These solutions will allow the providers with unparalleled partner solutions, which will further modernize the existing practice and offer your patients world-class healthcare service with no hiccups in other benefits.
