How Automating Patient Demographic Verification Can Improve the Billing and Reimbursement Process
Patient demographic verification is an important task for healthcare sectors such as Laboratories, Urgent Cares, Imaging Centers, Ambulance Services, Hospitals, Revenue Cycle Management companies and many more. To ensure accurate reimbursement and proper medical billing, verifying the demographics of the patients is vital. However, many healthcare organizations struggle to accurately and efficiently complete the verification process. Compounding the situation is a majority of patients do not carry useful information such as their Medicare and Insurance cards or other identification documents. This makes it quite difficult for healthcare organizations to verify the eligibility of the patients.
As a result, they depend on the primary care providers to obtain the patients information which can be time consuming and not only slows down the billing process but significantly increases operational costs. Automating patient demographic verification is the solution.
The Need for Accurate Patient Demographics
Before discussing automating demographic verification, let’s explore the importance. Patient demographics refers to the basic information: name, permanent and current address, date of birth, and insurance information. Accurate patient demographics provides the healthcare provider with the first step prior to seeking Insurance verification and subsequently streamlining the billing and reimbursement processes.
Automating Demographic Verification Improves Medical Billing and Reimbursement
Manually verifying patient demographics introduces the potential of a whole host of errors. Some of the most common include incorrect and incomplete information as well as keystroke errors when transposing information. Any error in the data can cause denials necessitating full time employees’ (FTEs’) time to recollect patient information, verify them, and reprocess claims. In addition, payments are delayed. To avoid all such hassle, an easy way is to automate the patient demographic verification. Here are some of the best benefits that automation can offer:
Reduces Chances of Errors
When verification is completed by an automated solution, you gain access to complete and accurate patient data. From the patient’s name to date of birth, phone number, and social security number, everything is properly verified by the tool. The best part is that the tool can identify missing information which easily enables you to make corrections prior to submitting for proper reimbursement. This reduces the chances of payment delays as a result of rejections.
Speeds up the process of payment delivery
With automation tools, you will no longer have to wait to receive patient information from primary care providers. It helps in speeding up payment delivery. You can quickly submit accurate patient information to the payers and get your payment processed quickly.
Reduced Administrative Burdens
Automation of patient demographic verification can significantly reduce the administrative burden of healthcare sectors such as Laboratories, Urgent Cares, Ambulance Services, Imaging Centers, Hospitals and many more. Right from capturing patient information to the discovery of missing information and enhancement of the information, the tool takes care of everything. This, in turn, provides the administrative staff with more time to focus on other core responsibilities.
The Bottom Line
Automating patient demographic verification is the new standard. Incorporating the right tool eliminates the time spent reaching out to healthcare providers, improves the accuracy of billing data resulting in faster reimbursement by the payer's. Now that you are aware of the benefits it is time to adopt an automated solution and experience optimum benefits.