Starting a Medical Billing Business > Starting Your Own Medical Billing Business
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Mona:
Hi everyone...I joined the forum hoping to gain some knowledge. I am currently doing the billing/collections for a physical therapist and have gotten quite good at it. She uses DBC AS/PC for software which I probably want to use as well. My goal is to have a side business for myself doing billing but have no clue what is required in obtaining billing info from my potential clients. Do I need to have access to their computer system to see what I need to bill for? Do most clients fax their billing sheets to their biller? If so, does the client also fax the patient ins.info and such to the biller? I guess I'm more confused as to how the biller gets all the appropriate patient info. to bill the insurance companies if the biller doesnt have access to the clients computer. I work with DBC now and collect all this info. into one part of the program which is transferred into the billing portion of the program so I'm wondering if I had a duplicate of this program as a biller on my own, would I need to enter the same patient demographics just like the client does in order to bill? Thanks in advance. Mona
PMRNC:
--- Quote ---My goal is to have a side business for myself doing billing but have no clue what is required in obtaining billing info from my potential clients. Do I need to have access to their computer system to see what I need to bill for? Do most clients fax their billing sheets to their biller? If so, does the client also fax the patient ins.info and such to the biller? I guess I'm more confused as to how the biller gets all the appropriate patient info. to bill the insurance companies if the biller doesnt have access to the clients computer. I work with DBC now and collect all this info. into one part of the program which is transferred into the billing portion of the program so I'm wondering if I had a duplicate of this program as a biller on my own, would I need to enter the same patient demographics just like the client does in order to bill? Thanks in advance. Mona
--- End quote ---
JMO, but I am finding it difficult to imagine this as a "side" job, not with all the ramifications, requirements, liability..etc
But anyway, to answer your question, how you get your information/source documents is really between you and the client..whatever works..there is networking, remote access, fax, messenger, mail, etc You and your client will negotiate the how's and when's prior to your contract being signed and those things will be included in the contract.
pattil88:
You may also want to consider some type of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) in which key patient demographic/insurance data elements can be electronically uploaded from one billing system to another. I am fortunate to have a local technical guru who can build these interface "engines" (at a cost, of course) but it sure beats relying on faxes, couriers, copying face sheets and other labor-intensive tasks to obtain this critical information for the billing process. Plus it's fast, can be run automatically through scripting (for example, upload all patient demographic info from the practice management system to the billing system I use, at say, midnight each day) and your new patient data and/or changed established patient data is available the next morning. Of course, you have to test this process thoroughly and have a secure VPN but in the long run it can save a ton of time, especially if you're processing a high-volume type of practice. I personally hate to "re-key" something that already exists in some dark corner of an existing database!
aksharhealth:
--- Quote from: pattil88 on January 11, 2011, 05:22:43 PM ---You may also want to consider some type of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) in which key patient demographic/insurance data elements can be electronically uploaded from one billing system to another. I am fortunate to have a local technical guru who can build these interface "engines" (at a cost, of course) but it sure beats relying on faxes, couriers, copying face sheets and other labor-intensive tasks to obtain this critical information for the billing process. Plus it's fast, can be run automatically through scripting (for example, upload all patient demographic info from the practice management system to the billing system I use, at say, midnight each day) and your new patient data and/or changed established patient data is available the next morning. Of course, you have to test this process thoroughly and have a secure VPN but in the long run it can save a ton of time, especially if you're processing a high-volume type of practice. I personally hate to "re-key" something that already exists in some dark corner of an existing database!
--- End quote ---
Just curious about how much cost is invloved in FTP connection?
PMRNC:
Just be aware that trying to get a physicians office to outsource is hard enough, but to get them to do all the data entry so that you can transmit is even harder, it's just not worth it to providers to have their staff input the information only to outsource to someone to get the same information for transmission, it's not practical nor is it a cost/savings to the provider. Also as a billing company, I would never be comfortable transmitting data someone else has entered since it would be my butt on the line in transmission.
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