The national healthcare system has been facing a lot of disruptions along with new faced challenges that have been a result of the pandemic brought about by Covid-19. People’s well-being and safety are being taken into consideration therefore a number of decisions that are being taken are centred around that. Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, many people have lost their jobs too. There is financial uncertainty and disruption in the medical supply chain which is occurring all over the world.
There is a whole change in medical billing management that has been introduced in different healthcare services provided all around the globe. For example, there is a new kind of tracking method of payment and billing is introduced by most healthcare service providers.
In this situation, you may have to continue the medical services in full force; but due to the pandemic, there is a lack of manpower as well in many of the medical organisations out there.
There is indeed a notable amount of impact that has happened on the medical billing strategies all over the globe due to this covid-19 pandemic.
Updates On New Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management
Previously it can be said that a new update on tracking billing and payment was introduced to have a steady flow of revenue. It is crucial for the healthcare providers because they are facing a tremendous amount of pressure to treat, diagnose and even for providing follow-up care too. For all these things there have to be some changes in medical billing systems.
A report which was published by RevCycle Intelligence highlighted new medical coding details that have been introduced during this particular pandemic situation. International Classification Of Diseases which is also known as ICD-10 has recently updated new medical billing codes too. Even the disease control centres rolled out new pandemic related ICD-10 codes on 1st October of 2020. AMA too introduced the new code ‘CPT87635’ on 13th March 2020. This code was introduced by keeping in mind the medical centres that partake in tasks such as taking respiratory swabs and transporting those to laboratories of the patients that are suspected to be infected.
Lacking Of Resources in Healthcare Practises
With lower resources during the time of the pandemic, healthcare practises are getting quite affected and they are unable to generate sufficient income for making payments for these crucial resources. According to a certain report, for the last few months, there has been a drastic decrease in ED patients in some areas; it has been over 50% which has been quite striking, to say the least.
This fact is quite unexpected because the medical providers thought that there will be more patients during this period. However, this is happening because patients are quite scared of getting infected while going to emergency wards for treatments.
Actions That Are Taken to Reduce Claim Denials
With enormous financial loss during this time of the pandemic, healthcare service providers have to take some steps to reduce the number of claim denials. 5 to 10% claims get denied approximately every year. To correct these claims, the providers have to pay quite a high amount of money for each of the cases. That is why they are desperate to reduce the rate of claim denials.
There are three steps that you can follow to reduce claim denials. The first thing is to analyse thoroughly and then audit the documents to identify the real reason behind the denial of the medical claim. Examine all the details accordingly like type, insurance payer and the reason behind it and even the number of errors per type. This is how you can improve in every department of your medical organisation.
Assign tasks to the medical specialists only, such as during the coding task it should be done by medical coding experts only. On the other hand, certain types of denials can be forwarded to the technical team only or you can assign a medical billing management team for this particular work.
During this pandemic condition where things have been tough, a healthcare provider can also take the help of automated machines to detect each and every error before submitting documents for claims. These machines can help you in every possible way. The AI in these machines is curated in a manner that allows them to detect errors in a fast and efficient manner.
These are some of the steps that you can follow and these steps will definitely help you to reduce the number of claim denials drastically and will allow you to work in a more proper and efficient way.
Managing Billing Procedure During Pandemic
Due to this pandemic condition, the billing and revenue cycle professionals in the healthcare department are quite under pressure now and they have to adapt to all the new strategies and systems.
It is quite difficult to give attention to each and every change that is happening in the industry after focusing on handling the medical billing system. But due to this pandemic, you have to be quite attentive in handling all the situations and even have to help the patients in every possible way.
Worldwide Survey Results On Financial Impact Due To Covid-19
The AMA in 2020 in the months of July and August commissioned a nationwide survey about the financial impact on the healthcare industry due to the pandemic. The result of this survey is based upon statements of over 3,500 physicians. The result of this survey has been the following;
- Around 32% of revenue has been dropped worldwide
- Among all 81% of the physicians said that revenue is quite low than the pre-pandemic situation
So, these are the effects that are happening on medical billing policy due to this pandemic. This is quite tough and you have to hire a reliable medical billing service provider like Synergy HCLS to handle this situation in an efficient way.
