Thursday, 15 March 2007

Medical Billing Services: How it is Useful to Medical Company


Medical treatment of Business has changed significantly in recent years. It presents many administrative difficulties during the preparation of the insurance policy and procedures dealing with complicated claim forms. To avoid these complications, doctors seek help from outside. Hire and advise their representatives, attend seminars insurance company and provide them with periodic financial reports this process is known as medical billing outsourcing.
An efficient and precise medical billing service is of prime importance for the smooth functioning of any medical service provider. A comprehensive medical billing service will in turn secure speedy reimbursements for clients. Medical billing is the process of submitting and following up on claims to insurance companies in order to receive payment. It is useful for medical healthcare providers. Medical billing services also supports on-demand invoicing, batch claims processing and interactive electronic claims Submission and remission.
Medical professionals and medical companies, whether they are Small companies or big organizations, are benefited from medical billing services. This billing can be considered as a communication between Medicare providers and insurance companies.
One can get following benefits by using medical billing services:
Medical Data Entry – patient demographics, details like place date type of service, and referring physician, CPT and ICD Codes, and Modifiers are keyed into the billing system
Medical Claims Billing – electronic and paper
Appeals – make appeals for denials and incorrect payments
Payment Posting and Reconciliation Medical Claims Management Collections Management
Accessibility – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Medical billing business involves many other important services such as handling all patient billing inquiries, submitting reports to the doctor, posting payments, mailing patient’s statements and following-up all unpaid insurance claims.
Medical billing services assist physicians in saving money through payroll Generation, equipment reduction, eliminating shipping costs, and support software. Outsourcing to a Professional medical billing company is free from management problems. A number of leading outsourcing medical billing services companies offer medical billing assistance for medical billing needs. The company uses the database free of compensation, and established practice, and other Online.

Tuesday, 9 January 2007

Opinion: Electronic medical records improve quality of care


Patients in the Kaiser Permanente San Jose Hospital are seeing something new when a physician or nurse visits their rooms. The doctors and nurses themselves aren’t different; they continue to provide their patients with superior care and service.
But a piece of equipment they bring with them — a wheeled cart with a computer screen on top — is a significant difference, and it’s an example of what will help dramatically improve health care in America.
The cart-borne computer is wirelessly connected to a huge database containing the medical history of our members, as well as the latest recommended treatments for a wide range of medical conditions. The database contains all outpatient and inpatient visit information, diagnostic images such as X-rays and mammograms, allergies, specialists’ notes, lab tests and prescriptions. And it is all part of KP HealthConnect, the largest nongovernmental electronic medical record (EMR) system in the United States.
Electronic medical records are a cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s health reform effort, and as part of his effort to stimulate the economy, he has dedicated some $19 billion to make EMRs a national reality.
Why? Electronic medical records improve the quality of care. A fully functional EMR system gives physicians, nurses and technicians a patient’s comprehensive medical history at the point of care, whether it’s in the doctor’s office, the emergency room or in a skilled nursing facility. It is also remotely accessible for specialists and others who are on call, allowing them to make informed decisions that expedite patient care.
EMRs have the potential to increase efficiency and contain costs by reducing duplication and improving patient safety, and they do this by harnessing the incredible power of computers — their ability to calculate, to network, to automatically check facts and to provide targeted research results — and applying that power to medical care.
In health care systems with fully implemented electronic medical records, physicians and nurses no longer need to spend valuable time looking through several files for paper records that are often incomplete.
Now, for example, emergency department physicians with a fully functional EMR system can see a patient’s previous hospitalizations, medications and diagnoses when that patient shows up complaining of chest pains. That means treatment can begin more quickly and success is more likely.
Medication is safer, too: Prescriptions written by physicians using the EMR system are spell-checked and legible, and the computer automatically combs the patient’s history for potentially dangerous drug interactions and alerts the doctor.
In the hospital, medications are bar-coded and scanned at bedside to help ensure the right patient is getting the right drug in the right dose at the right time.
Of course, EMRs should not be a one-way street. In integrated health care systems, patients can use their home computers to increase convenience by making appointments online, ordering prescription refills that are delivered to their home, viewing their lab results through secure Web pages, and e-mailing their physicians — all at no additional cost.
Last year, thanks to these online tools tied to EMRs, Kaiser Permanente members had 6 million e-visits without using a gallon of gas.
Notes jotted on paper and placed in multiple files where doctors rarely see them are a remnant of a fragmented, inefficient model of medical care. In the 21st century, Americans expect — and deserve — more.