What defines Urgent Care billing? One might say, speed. While this is true, it is not the only one. Successful Urgent Care billing is marked also by accuracy and a general alacrity in capturing patient details at the earliest opportunity. This is mainly because Urgent Care services operate on a model of delivery that is quite different from other kinds of health care establishments.
To start with, the ambulatory nature of the patients who walk into an Urgent Care center sets the pace for the services they seek. These centers operate to provide services without delay, without prior appointment and without many other kinds of formalities that are common in other places. The rule is simple. If you are looking for immediate medical care, an Urgent Care facility is where you get it. Of course, there are some important exceptions. For example, the condition of the patient must not be life-threatening, in which case it should be referred to a hospital Emergency Room.
Common mistakes in Urgent Care billing
One of the most common mistakes that are encountered in Urgent Care billing is failing to capture the requisite details when the patient walks in. These include details about the patient’s insurance plan and other details that ultimately go into making a claim for reimbursement later on. Once the patient receives the service and walks out, it may become difficult to collect those details. So, an alert and proactive approach by the front desk personnel is an absolute necessity in this case.
Another common error encountered in Urgent Care billing is failing to use the right codes in the bill. One should be careful about under-coding (which can result in diminished collections) or over-coding (which can lead to a summary rejection of the claim). The POS (Place of Service) code should also be entered correctly, and the service rendered should fall under the list of permissible services for an Urgent Care facility.
All said, it can often seem like a lot of trouble for many providers. This is why many Urgent Care centers choose to outsource their billing tasks to specialized, third-party billing experts. This not only helps them increase their collections and reduce denials, but also cut operational cost by a huge margin. Strategic outsourcing is therefore an option that serious Urgent Care businesses cannot really afford to ignore.
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