General Category > General Questions
Can you make a profit by charging 4%?
best biller:
could someone explain me?
if e clinical works offers to do the billing for just 2.9%, is there any reason for a doctor to do it with a small company for a higher rate?
PMRNC:
--- Quote ---could someone explain me?
if e clinical works offers to do the billing for just 2.9%, is there any reason for a doctor to do it with a small company for a higher rate?
--- End quote ---
This is what I was afraid of.. this kind of question and discussion which I feel is a bit inappropriate.. as far as I know e clinical works is a software product/service, I sure hope it's not a billing company to which someone would come on here to price shop. If so I'd have to say that's "CHEAP"
One more comment on this and I'm done with this discussion. Yes maybe in many industries market research is important in a detailed way, however this industry isn't one of them. If you decide to "compete" rather than network and you are shopping other services, do NOT be surprised if you receive a cold shoulder along the way. It's frankly TACKY IMHO. Secondly.. I've lived by networking and NOT doing this type of "UNDERCUTTING" and for that reason alone I've received numerous referal's and have consulted with numerous billing companies as well as networked with them. I suggest if your trying to "UNDERCUT" that you step back and then learn about "Perceived value"
--- Quote ---Businesses who fail to plan, plan to fail
--- End quote ---
Yes, all businesses should have a plan, but you have repeatedly looked at the "pricing" angle only. I certainly haven't failed and I have NEVER undercut another billing company nor would I. My services are worth more than 4% hands down and my services will OUT do the 4% market any day. Nuff said.
Michele:
--- Quote from: best biller on December 05, 2012, 09:49:40 PM ---could someone explain me?
if e clinical works offers to do the billing for just 2.9%, is there any reason for a doctor to do it with a small company for a higher rate?
--- End quote ---
You get what you pay for.
RichardP:
best biller - some doctors do really complicated work, others do really simply work, and others are somewhere between those two extremes.
The doctors who do only a few things, over and over, and whose accounts receivable are also simple, could get by with a cheap billing setup such as you describe. In such a situation, there is little chance that the doctors will be leaving money on the table through their ignorance of how to bill properly. In this situation, the doctor is only paying for billing, and anybody can do it.
The more complex the medicine gets, the more likely it is that a doctor will leave money on the table because of incorrect billing. The doctors who do more complex medicine, and maybe also have physician office labs (POL), pay not only for billing, but also pay for the knowledge that their biller has (if they are any good) that can help the doctors not leave money on the table through poor billing practices. A good biller can get these doctors more money than what the biller costs them.
I give an example on Page 3 of this thread where a group of doctors, using very sophisticated technology and software, are still leaving about 30% on the table - due to them not knowing how to bill for their services properly. A biller who knows what s/he is doing can recoup most if not all of that 30%, which will more than pay for the 5-8 percent the biller may charge. It is not likely that the company you mentioned would recoup any of that 30%. Therefore, their low rate is of no benefit at all to that group of doctors.
A good biller will manage the finances of the doctor. If the medicine is complex, the finances will be complex, and the need for financial management will be correspondingly more complex. If the medicine is simple, the finances will be simple. And the need for financial management will be simple or non-existant. But consider this, based on a recent real-life encounter with the doctor's wife. A doctor at a sizeable practice just up and quit one day. The practice called a highly-regarded staff physician away from UCLA Medical Center. Been a physician for a while. First time in private practice, where his income depends on his own efforts. Pays a reasonable fee to some off-site company to do his billing electronically. He gets EOBs electronically. But has never needed to look at the EOBs, since he has been a staff doctor for all of his professional life and somebody else looked at them. He just collected his salary. Doesn't really know how to interpret them, so has not looked at his electronic EOBs since he took over the practice. Some of you are already asking the relevant question in your heads: if he doesn't look at his EOBs, how can he know how much of his charges are simply being written off rather than persued? And without knowing the answer to that question, how can he know that he is getting paid all he should be getting paid? How can he know that his billing company is actually doing the work he is paying them for? My wife gently pointed this out to the doctor's wife, and the doctor's wife was both flabbergasted and appalled. That anecdote is another example of how doctors benefit from the services and knowledge of a personal biller. If the personal biller is any good, they will force the doctor to pay attention to his finances - which is to the doctor's benefit.
PMRNC:
I just couldn't sleep w/out wondering something.. no matter HOW I run the numbers there's NO way I could offer (nor would I, of course) my services for 4%.. I am willing to BET that those "cheaper" servicing companies hire just the bare bones minimum of data processors and how the hell are they buying E/O insurance? (my bet, is they are NOT) But it makes sense, when you look at all the fraud cases filed, they are all the larger billing companies. Even more suits filed by physicians suing larger billing companies.
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