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need some tips

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PMRNC:
Does your practice see patients? perhaps that is where the confusion lies.. certainly DME companies are going to be operated differently..but in dealing with medical offices that see patients day-to-day there are a ton of things that can be done, from referrals, scheduling, triage, Policies&Procedures, charts, etc... 
I suppose if the DME company you work for is not dealing with day-to-day patient care there are going to be people with nothing to do.. from a marketing standpoint someone COULD present an outsourced solution, cut the practice staff, overhead and save the practice money right off the bat.. especially in today's economy.. all I'm saying is that if you plan to market to providers who do see patients on a day-to-day basis you will still have better luck NOT excluding the office/billing staff or trying to undercut them.. later on if the practice should decide to cut staff that decision would be there's but again, I've never taken anyone's job in all the years I've been doing this. Now if you don't plan to market to practices that don't see patients on a day-to-day basis like some DME companies than perhaps you do have to have an angle to go around the office / billing staff. So how do you do that if you can't? 

Pay_My_Claims:
I do both, medical and DME. You basically said what I was saying as well. I personally consider it a demotion when I am not longer doing what I was hired to do. Yes they have other functions in the work place that don't have anything to do with the direct revenue cycle. Large practices do have referral specialist , but non-medical personal don't triage. Offering FPM can include scheduling, referrals etc. In DME we do see clients daily. We do repairs which would be considered something like urgent care. This is very important as you have to recheck benefits, check for DME caps and also check for same or similar. You also have to deal with clients that got their equipment somewhere else or in cases where it was paid by another source and repairs are being done by Medicare. If a billing service came into this office, that is one of the positions that I could do, work in service...not what I signed up for. I think your view is on the fact that the person may not necessarily be terminated because there is work to be done, but i look at it as they no longer need the biller they hired doing the billing function. Even now with me doing the AFO's for the neurologist, and they have a medical biller doing the medical claims. She can't bill DME, but I CAN bill both. How long do you think they will keep us both???  I would hate for her to lose her job, but it is something she is thinking about.

Single mom of 2.......dog eat dog world...I don't plan on being on the inside of the dog looking out!!

PMRNC:
Well I don't think we are thinking along the same lines.. you are thinking as an in-house biller vs. Marketing yourself as an outsourced billing company, there's a big difference. YOU might view it as a demotion, but if you plan to market your services you need to not focus on those things, let the doctors or practice owners make those decisions.

Pay_My_Claims:
*smile* Go back and re-read that is what I said. I said it isn't my job to put the staff at ease, it is the Owners/PM/OM job. I have no idea what he/she plans to do if they decide to hire my service. When I do go into a business, DME/Medical/Dental, I sell full Practice Management. I am doing that for a psychiatrist (she has no biller in-house, nor had one. she was doing it alone so no job lost). The Pediatrician, same case, however the DME has 2 billers, me and the medical biller. she is now DUPLICATING work, and eventually can eliminate one of us. At the moment she and I work in conjunction with each other as well as her other office staff. As my services increase, she can find it not necessary to have all of us there. My focus isn't on me versus them. I don't go into a business looking to have them see what I can do over them, but what I can do to assist their office. I don't market my business in such a way as to eliminate jobs, but for me it is what it is. If I had to hire someone on my staff today, and I had 2 applicants, one could bill both medical and DME and the other just medical. I would hire the one that could do more. I view that with any business. Why keep on staff when the work is being done elsewhere. One of the key marketing forms I see all the time is how much money a company saves when they hire a billing service over a medical biller, so I don't understand the issue.

PMRNC:

--- Quote ---*smile* Go back and re-read that is what I said. I said it isn't my job to put the staff at ease, it is the Owners/PM/OM job
--- End quote ---

Ok, we are half way there. LOL I understand a little better now. BUT.. I'm not saying you can control what happens after you get the client.. ultimately it will be up to the practice owners, but we are still talking about MARKETING and much of marketing involves sales and sales involves putting the gatekeeper at ease.. it's almost brown nosing 101 and while I can understand no one wants to do it it has to be done. If that gatekeeper is entrusted with screening phone calls and visitors and you don't feel it's your job to put her at ease, you will be limiting your potential market. Yes there will be some you are not going to get around and even if you do there is a very huge likelihood that you will be working with them so it's only to your benefit to put their minds at ease right off the bat.  I have also worked with clients that don't have any staff and it's frustrating, I won't take those clients anymore.


--- Quote ---Why keep on staff when the work is being done elsewhere. One of the key marketing forms I see all the time is how much money a company saves when they hire a billing service over a medical biller, so I don't understand the issue
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure you are understanding and that's fine, a medical practice is SUPPOSED to be about patient care first.. that's the whole idea that's been lost in our country for a long time. If you don't understand why they would need office staff if they are outsourcing the billing, then your just not understanding all the other duties and functions of the practice.
Jobs shift, responsibilities shift and employees adjust, and the ones I've handled adjust pretty well, their stress levels are way down and they are able to focus their attention to patients and other tasks in the office. Check in and check outs go smooth and you don't have patients sitting on top of each other in a waiting room.  Again this is fact proven.. every one of my practices past & present was able to increase collections and run more efficiently and yes.. make more money just by outsourcing and shifting responsibilities.  As a consultant I used to go into larger offices and do what they call job-flow studies, this is where you take the staff and shift their job description for either a week or two weeks, this teaches tolerance and team-work within the practice. Doctors have paid me big bucks and have seen the benefits of this time and time again.

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