Do Less Paperwork! How a Mental Health Billing Service Can Reduce the Workload of a Psychotherapist or Psychologist
What is the least favorite activity you do in your private practice?
For most mental health clinicians, the answer is paperwork!
In fact, many of us who went into private practice did so with a dream that was at least partially motivated by the idea of getting
away from the paperwork required at an agency. But private practitioners often find the paperwork just changed-- from agency required
paperwork to insurance paperwork.
An efficient mental health billing service can take much of the paperwork off your hands. A biller obviously can not fill out all of the
clinical forms, but much of the insurance paperwork can be delegated to the biller.
If a new client information form is sent to a medical billing service, the biller can enter the patient information
into a computer system and file claims. The clinician need only fill out and send a daysheet of which client kept their
appointments and what services were provided. If the clinician is comfortable using basic software on a computer, the process can be
even simpler. Using a remote billing service that works with the clinicians own computer securely and using a good practice
management system, like Office Therapy®, makes it truly simple. A clinician enter the appointments into their own computer into
their computer daily in just a few minutes and with some insurance companies never needs to send the biller any further
information after the new client information is set up.
If the clinician chooses a biller that can remotely log into the clinicians practice management system and a service such as Gateway
EDI is used that has electronic claims submission and electronic remittance advice, the biller can not only file all the insurance claims
but can enter insurance payments into system. In many cases, a good biller can follow up and appeal insurance denials without
even involving the clinician.
With an efficient system like this the clinician will need only to spend a few minutes a day entering which appointments were kept
and another few minutes a day opening the checks from the insurance companies and filing the EOBS. (Many EOBs would not even need to be
filed in separate files-- the biller already has an electronic copy of them.) The medical biller can do nearly every thing
else remotely, from any location.
Currently, medical billing services work in many different ways. However the billing services that make the best use of available technology
can save the mental health professional many hours of paperwork.
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