Proper medical coding is vital to a healthcare system’s revenue cycle. Unfortunately, constantly evolving regulatory and compliance requirements, coupled with internal staffing shortages, can quickly derail medical coding workflow in any medical organization. It only takes a few operational hiccups to impede the entire billing process from both a patient and payment perspective. Improper coding can even result in noncompliance penalties and fines.
H.I.M. leaders across every specialty are continuously looking for ways to mitigate risk and prioritize fast, accurate, compliant medical coding practices. For many H.I.M. directors and managers, outsourcing medical coding to an virtual staffing firm delivers an ideal way to reduce cost, ensure proper staffing, control quality and productivity, and ultimately improve the revenue cycle.
Health Information Management Directors Partner With Virtual Staffing Firms
Virtual staffing firms that specialize in medical coding help address and resolve some of the biggest challenges health information management teams face throughout the revenue cycle, beginning with backlog. Today’s healthcare landscape has been riddled with unpredictable upswings and downturns, forcing many facilities to adjust their workforce model to remain financially stable. The unforeseen landscape of patient volumes means that a sudden surge can quickly result in a coding backlog.
An virtual staffing partner offers experienced and credentialed resources capable of adapting to a client’s current medical coding needs. This agile staffing model enables facilities to increase or reduce assigned workers to adapt to changing volumes to prevent an unexpected backlog that could ultimately impede payments.
Outsourcing medical coding and billing to a virtual staffing provider can also reduce the total number of coding denials in a facility. Coding denials delay the payment process, increase days in A/R, and result in less operating cash for the organization. Worse yet, having to reevaluate and rework accounts prolongs the work process and can hit a facility’s operating expense and profitability. An innovative virtual staffing firm uses state-of-the-art technology and management controls to drive quality assurance efforts, ensuring the highest standards of accuracy across all care settings.
Virtual Staffing Delivers Significant Cost Savings to H.I.M. Leaders
One of the biggest advantages an virtual staffing firm delivers is significant cost savings compared to internal staffing of medical coders. A competent outsourced team boosts productivity, efficiencies, and accuracy, while eliminating the management responsibility and burden from the organization, yielding savings of up to 60 percent of an organization’s current costs.
Some of the savings stem from eliminating ongoing recruiting expenses associated with traditional, internal staffing models. Outsourcing your facility’s medical coding means your trusted partner will manage the entire process on your behalf. Your virtual staffing company will add designated resources and backfill positions due to turnover for you as part of your pricing agreement. You’ll never have to worry about spending time, money, and efforts ramping up and recruiting every time you notice a staffing gap.
Finally, your virtual staffing provider will prioritize the streamlining of the workflow, communication, quality reviews, and response to denials. Your assigned team will identify opportunities to merge functionality at the point of coding. By eliminating redundancies, your outsourced team may identify additional revenue opportunities to add to your bottom line.
Pena4’s Outsourced Medical Coding Services Drive Efficiency, Compliance, and Profitability
Pena4’s medical coding services optimize outcomes in every care setting and for all record types. Contact us today to learn more about leveraging our virtual staffing strategies in your healthcare organization.
