Medical Billing and Collections

Patient billing involves processing of patient claims while collections involve
recovering overdue medical bills from patients. The two processes are extremely important
for healthcare organizations because they impact the financial health of the organizations.
Granted, the main goal of healthcare organizations is to provide excellent healthcare services
to patients and improve their health outcomes. However, they cannot achieve this goal if the
business side of the healthcare organization is messed up. Effective billing and collection
help healthcare organizations to avoid cashflow problems (Providence, 2018). Like any other
business, cash flow problems can have a major negative impact on healthcare businesses.
They can lead to delayed payments of staff, suppliers of materials, and the healthcare
organization’s own debt obligations to banks and other financial institutions. By reducing
cash flow problems, effective billing and collection helps healthcare organizations to provide
patients with high quality care that improves their outcomes.

In addition to reducing cash flow problems, effective billing and collection processes
also improve healthcare organizations’ relationship with their clients. When patients receive
bills that are inaccurate or not transparent, they are likely to lose trust of the healthcare
organization (Providence, 2018). A loss of trust from patients leads to loss of business and
eventual collapse of the healthcare organization.

There are many ways that billing and collections processes can be improved. One of
them is through the use of technology. Through leveraging latest technology that offers
features such as streamlining and automation of medical billing and collection processes, a
healthcare organization can increase the speed and accuracy of its billing and collection
processes.

3
Apart from use of technology, training of staff also significantly improves medical
billing and collection process. Inexperienced staff are usually susceptible to making errors.
Training them ensures that they become competent in their work and do not make
unnecessary errors. Additionally, since medical billing and collections involve different
teams of staff, it is important to create a system where there is effective communication
among the different teams of staff involved in the two processes.

4

References

Providence, A. (2018). Billing and Collection Policy. POLICY, 6, 17.