If you love your EHR/EMR, keep your EHR/EMR. We can integrate with it - no problem.
We have found over the years that we have three strengths that allow us to be competitive and provide us continual referrals from our clients:
- Our approach: We take a consultative approach to your business. Since we come from the healthcare industry and have managed multiple clinics, we can walk in your shoes and understand and anticipate your challenges as a healthcare provider. Call it free consulting, call it what you want–we call it added value–value that we love to share with you.
- Our experience: We have seen many small start-up billing firms come and go (approximately 96%). Since 1989, we have supported many clients who will attest to our consultative approach and work ethic to make your outsourced billing a success.
- Our Fees: We made a decision many years ago that by minimizing labor and real estate costs (AND Yes, we are still 100% based in the US—no offshore billing staff), and by providing exemplary quality and experience in billing, we could be one of the most competitively priced firms in the country—supporting the entire U.S. No set up fees AND no annual contract.
There are multiple ways and we will customize that for you so that it’s as easy on you as possible. It can be as simple as scanning items to us, mailing, us gathering via your existing system or the preferred method of using our cloud software (Vital Monkey) to electronically (in real time) process those to us.
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One to three days if necessary. This is also dependent upon credentialing if you are a new practice, which may take longer.
The variance of payers and many outside factors make this a difficult question. However, the average turnaround in the industry is 30 to 45 days. Obviously, some are more and some are less. You may sometimes see different software or billing firms tout “you will get reimbursed in two weeks with our firm!” The fact is that CMMS/HCFA is required to hold the claim for 13 days for all electronic claims and 23 days for paper submissions. Even for commercial payers, 14 days is an exception and certainly not the rule. The National average for days In accounts receivable (for Family Practice) is 43.
First you should define “collection rate”. The “Net” definition is defined as: payments divided by gross charges, minus adjustments. Our average “Net” collection rate is 90% to 93% of your allowed amounts (based on payer contracted rates). The National Average for Primary Care providers is 92% for Net, and 65% Gross collections.
We have a state of the art network in our operations center that backs up all client data several times per day with offsite storage for backups and redundancy. We also have a secured building with complete offsite alarm monitoring. Our staff all sign confidentiality agreements and we don’t give out information over the phone to anyone but patients, or responsible parties. Our contract addresses this.
Within 24 business hours of receipt we will prepare your claims for processing. Obviously, if we need to gather additional information from your practice, we will reach out to you for that information, and prepare for processing upon completion of receipt of that information.
Payments will go to you (current mailing address or electronically to your bank). If you would like for us to receive the funds and make deposits for you, that is an option as well.
90% of billing is billing, no matter what the discipline. The 10% differences tend to be discipline specific nuances. We have experience and a current client base that is made up of everything from family medicine and urgent care, to allergy/asthma to surgery, mental health, podiatry, physical & occupational therapy, chiropractics, and cardiology.
We use Vital Monkey (www.VitalMonkey.com). However, we have found that billing software is only as good as the biller and billing processes.
We at AMBS have found over the years that an acceptable formula for determining your “AR Health” is to multiply your gross average monthly charges by 2.5 to 3. Example: Average monthly charges $40,000 x 2.5 = $100,000. If you are at or above this number, there is a chance that you will need to put a greater focus on your “growing AR.” This is something that AMBS has become an expert at doing.
**Also note that your billing company has no control over a portion of your AR – and that is patient responsibility amounts. This is where you have to have tight internal collection controls and protocol on when to send accounts to collections.
Yes. AMBS utilizes a “team” billing approach. Your account will be handled by a small team of no less than three to four reps that will all be cross trained on your account. This will allow for more than enough coverage as you grow your practice. Each team has 15+ years of experience.
Minimal. 80% of our staff has been with us for 3+ years. We have highly dedicated staff that also brings many years of experience. Because we take a team approach, (where most providers are unable to do internally) we are not impacted when one individual has to leave for vacation, illness or upward advancement in their career path with AMBS.
There are 2 options:
- A complete printout (or softcopy) from your existing system.
- Provide to us the most current patient information as you see them. This also gives you the opportunity to “start fresh” with your data and have your patients re-register.
If possible, we prefer that you continue to work (post payments and re-bill) your existing accounts receivable for a period of three months. If this is not possible, we can handle that as well.
You will see many “Billing Services” advertise very low fees on the internet. These are referred to as “Discount Providers.” Typically, they are based in other countries other than the USA and typically only ‘process’ claims – which is NOT a full-service firm. In today’s healthcare climate, you can not just ‘submit and hope’ claims get paid. It requires experienced, human touches to maintain a healthy cashflow. As they say, you typically get what you pay for.
Do not be confused by technology companies that claim to offer “billing services.” No amount of technology can replace the need for experienced billers that manage the reimbursement process from start to finish. There is more to getting paid than “processing a claim.”