The medical billing environment is rapidly evolving making it expensive and burdensome for healthcare providers to cope with the changes. More and more healthcare providers are integrating technology into their billing processes. However, around 80% of medical bills contain errors, as most providers still rely on outdated manual systems to bill durable medical equipment.
Adopt Technology or Perish
Most DME/HME businesses grapple with large volumes of workflows and documentation. As the markets continue to burgeon, demand increases, creating gridlock in document processing. This is common with healthcare providers, which depend on slow and irksome manual billing.
Smart DME business owners have adopted technology to help streamline workflows and automate repetitive tasks in the billing process. Providers which remain with legacy systems may struggle to survive in the current market where payers, equipment manufacturers, and patients demand efficiency.
Digitizing the DME/HME process right from patient intake to equipment ordering and delivery saves you hours you’d have wasted performing verifications and mailing documents. Technology allows you to grow and transform your business without much difficulty.
What Integration Options Do I Have?
While technology is truly the backbone of transformation, many providers don’t know how to integrate tech systems into their business. Some hire information technology experts, others outsource IT services, and others choose to undertake everything themselves. We recommend outsourcing or using apps and software because this model saves you overhead and administrative costs. Here’s how you can adopt technology in your home medical equipment business:
- Outsource IT services
If you’re running a DME business, you might already have a web-based subscription for managing patient records and scheduling. With this system, back-end resources are delivered through remote services. All maintenance services are undertaken by the healthcare IT company providing you with the service.
Similarly, you can outsource DME/HME coding and billing services to other professionals. While this is a cost-saving option, it can be frustrating because you’re still required to sign documents and verify them. It even becomes difficult when the outsourcing company is inefficient.
- Hire In-House IT Staff
When you adopt technology in your healthcare business, you might have IT support requirements. Some durable medical equipment providers choose to hire in-house staff to take care of these requirements for the smooth and seamless running of all tech systems. With this approach, you benefit from the advantage of having someone who can handle general IT issues.
However, the costs of hiring and maintaining an in-house IT staff can be high. Also, in case of data breaches and data losses, HIPAA will hold your business liable.
- Adopt SaaS Solutions
For most businesses in the healthcare industry, using third-party customizable apps and software is the best solution. This is because these apps are easy-to-use and are designed to fulfill specific functions. As a DME and HME provider, you can get an HME billing software like https://nikohealth.com/hme-dme-billing-software/ that can handle automate everything concerning submitting claims, handling denials, and managing DME orders/deliveries.
Since most providers can handle most of the tasks, they just require a software to manage DME acquisition and document verification. Outsourcing or hiring staff is out of the question for providers who need a simple, affordable, and efficient automation solution for their business. For that reason, some companies, which use innovative approaches, have developed intuitive software for automating workflows and increasing productivity.
What’s the Best Automation Solution?
The best automation solution for your DME business is a software hosted remotely. Such a tool has thousands of predefined rules that help identify billing errors, compliance issues, and incomplete documents. This enables you to verify several documents accurately and quickly. As a result, you save time and money.
A software can also be configured to suit your unique business setup. Whether you’re a start-up or a mid-sized enterprise, a web-based platform enables you to access and see in real-time the status of your business. You can activate reminders, notifications, and alerts for smooth and instant communication and handling of issues.
The best automation solution provides you with better visibility of your business at any time. It’s time you use data to make decisions and predict the future of your business. With analytics and reporting tools integrated with your automation tool, you can easily pinpoint areas that need improvement. With such a system, you avoid “blind” decision-making.
DME/HME Business Automation
Most home medical equipment providers want efficient but inexpensive solutions to streamline workflows. They want a software that can automatically flag unsigned or incomplete documents. A tool that can catch coding and billing errors before submitting claims. They want a software solution that can show the real-time status of DME orders.
If you want to increase efficiency in your HME business, you must choose the solution that meets some specific requirements and criteria:
- Real-time monitoring of DME/HME orders
- Efficient communication between providers, payers, and patients
- Automatic document verification
- Daily & weekly analytics
- Easy management of denials
- Smooth revenue cycle management (RCM)
- Ensures regulatory compliance
Here is an example of this kind of hme medical equipment software: https://nikohealth.com/ Using such product you can streamline your operations, reduce human errors, and make billing and payment collections easier. Also, you get comprehensive reports and insights about your business, allowing you to tailor efforts to non-performing areas. More importantly, you get to deliver HME orders within time, thus improving customers’ satisfaction.
