9 Arguments in Favour of Outsourcing Your Medical Coding

1
9 Arguments in Favor of Outsourcing Your Medical
Coding
The submission of medical claims and correct and
effective medical coding are essential to your
healthcare organization's payment. But when done
in-house, medical coding may be difficult,
time-consuming, and expensive. Due to these
difficulties, several practices are thinking
about outsourcing their outsource medical
billing and coding.

• Any healthcare firm must make a critical choice
  on whether to hire an external coding specialist
  or develop an internal team of medical coders.
  Working with outside coding experts is typically
  the best choice due to the benefits this strategy
  offers. Here are some reasons to think about
  outsourcing medical coding.
• Up-to-Date Certifications
• Consistent Staffing Levels
• Cost-Effectiveness
• Hiring Challenges
• More Time for Core Activities
• Flexibility and Scalability
• Consistent Quality and Accuracy
• Transparency
• Security and Compliance
• What Is Remote or Outsourced Medical Coding?
• In contrast to doing it internally, outsourcing
  medical coding is contracting out your coding
  labor to a third-party coding company. The
  coding business will be in charge of all or most
  of the work associated with your medical coding
  requirements, depending on your agreement.
• The third-party business is also in charge of
  ensuring that its personnel are knowledgeable
  about the most recent coding standards and
  specifications. Although many medical coders work
  remotely, you can also hire programmers to come
  work at your office.
• After finishing a procedure, a doctor will
  transmit the medical charts to the organization
  they work with if they are outsourcing their
  coding. After reading the charts and finishing
  the coding, the coders will email the charts
  back to the practice.

2

• You can perform your medical coding internally as
  an alternative to outsourcing it. Physicians and
  other medical professionals may code themselves
  at some organizations. To handle all or most of
  their coding, other organizations might create an
  in-house team of medical coders.
• Benefits of Outsourcing Medical Coding
• The benefits of outsourcing your medical coding
  to a professional are numerous. Here are some of
  the main arguments in favor of outsourcing
  medical coding.
• Up-to-Date Certifications
• Medical coders must stay current with changes to
  coding standards, laws, and best practices.
  Additionally, they must fulfill the criteria for
  continuous education and maintain their
  certificates. Additionally, it is advantageous
  for them to stay up to date with news from
  governmental bodies, healthcare institutions,
  and other organizations via their websites,
  blogs, email lists, webinars, seminars, and
  other materials.
• It takes a lot of time to stay current on
  certifications and changes. There are times when
  a significant upgrade brings about a significant
  change in medical coding. For instance, the
  number of codes significantly increased with the
  release of ICD 10. Compared to ICD-9-CM, volume
  3, ICD-10-PCS contains roughly 19 times as many
  procedure codes, while ICD-10-CM has roughly 5
  times as many diagnosis codes.
• But you won't need to worry about these criteria
  if you engage with independent medical coding
  experts. These concerns will be handled by
  medical coding outsourcing businesses, and you
  can be confident that the coders working on your
  charts are qualified and knowledgeable.
• Our coders are all fully qualified by either the
  American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC)
  or the American Health Information Management
  Association (AHIMA) at HealthCare Resolution
  Services (HCRS).
• Consistent Staffing Levels
• If you have a code team on staff, you depend on
  them for all of your coding requirements. When
  working solely with your team, you have little
  flexibility to respond to shifting circumstances.
  The amount of coding that needs to be done may
  occasionally be greater than what your own staff
  can handle. Other times, a member of your team
  may be absent from work because they are unwell,
  on vacation, or even quit. This may result in
  backlogs in coding work and payment delays.
• On the other hand, because they employ a big
  number of coders, medical coding firms can adapt
  to variations in the amount of work that your
  clinic offers them. Because they have other
  coders they can rotate in, they also don't have
  to be concerned if one of their employees is
  absent from the office. You can relax knowing
  there are always enough coders to complete the
  task quickly when you engage with contract
  medical coding firms.

3

• Cost-Effectiveness
• When compared to hiring and keeping an own team
  of coders, outsourcing medical coding often
  proves to be more economical. Medical coders are
  expensive to hire, especially those with
  advanced training and specialities. You can
  access excellent developers at a cheaper cost
  through outsourcing.
• The average annual pay for a medical coder is
  52,411 according to the AAPC. The salaries of
  certified coders and those with greater
  experience will increase. The typical yearly
  salary for specialized coders who hold
  qualifications such as Certified Professional
  Medical Auditor, Certified Documentation Expert
  Outpatient, or Certified Physician Practice
  Manager is roughly
• 64,000.
• Of course, the expense of hiring a medical coder
  is not their salary. Other costs will include
  taxes that are paid by your company and benefits
  like health insurance, retirement benefits, and
  paid time off. These expenses will account for
  around 35 of a coder's pay. Additionally, there
  are intangible costs like those related to
  hiring, training, supervising, licensing, and
  insurance, as well as actual costs like office
  space and supplies. As you hire, manage, teach,
  and otherwise invest in your internal code team,
  you also need to take opportunity costs into
  account.
• When you outsource your medical coding, the
  business you choose is in charge of paying all of
  these costs. They can often offer these services
  to practices for less than it would cost the
  practices to handle all medical coding themselves
  since they operate on a bigger scale, have
  experience with medical coding, and make coding
  their main priority.
• You can conduct your own study to ascertain which
  practice is the most economical for you because
  conditions vary across them. Often, outsourcing
  your code to a professional is the most
  cost-effective strategy.
• Hiring Challenges
• Beyond price, hiring medical coders might provide
  difficulties. Medical coders who are qualified
  are in low supply at the moment. This is partly
  attributable to the IDC 10, which decreased the
  productivity of coders by requiring them to learn
  a new system. Since the average age of a medical
  coder is 54, the implementation of ICD 10 also
  resulted in a significant number of retirements,
  and more retirements are anticipated soon.
• Finding a qualified coder with experience in a
  particular area makes the search much harder.
  There might not be a sufficient number of medical
  coders in your area who fulfill your needs. The
  shortage of medical coders is also raising coder
  salaries. It might be difficult to keep the
  programmers you recruit, especially with the
  abundance of career opportunities available to
  programmers nowadays.

4

• But if you outsource your development, you'll
  always have a pool of programmers at your
  disposal. Even if some of the developers working
  for the company you hired depart, others will
  step in right away.
• Since remote medical billing and coding
  businesses can hire coders from any location,
  their talent pool is wider. Even if you want a
  specialist, the coding business you choose will
  have coders who meet your requirements for
  experience and education.
• More Time for Core Activities
• Internal medical coding requires time and
  resources that could be used for other tasks.
  This is especially true if doctors perform their
  own coding, but it also requires a lot of time
  and money to train and manage an internal
  workforce. The opportunity cost of doing your own
  medical coding is significant.
• You can spend more time concentrating on your
  main tasks by outsourcing your coding. As a
  result, your staff will have more time to devote
  to patients, which will help to raise the
  standard of treatment. Working with a reputable
  coding company will still result in precise
  coding and prompt payment, but you won't have to
  take time away from the main activities of your
  practice to achieve those goals.
• Flexibility and Scalability
• Compared to hiring an internal team, working with
  a contract medical coding business gives you
  greater flexibility and scalability. You have a
  predetermined amount of coders on an internal
  team. The process of hiring more personnel takes
  time. The knowledge and experience of those
  coders are also limited, so if something
  unexpected occurs, they might not be prepared to
  handle it without more training.
• However, outsourcing gives you access to a
  sizable pool of coding experts. You can scale
  your team up or down quickly with this access.
  The coding firm can allocate more staff if you
  have an abnormally high volume of work one day
  to finish it so there is no delay in filing
  claims and getting paid. You may build up your
  coding ability more permanently with less effort
  as your practice expands over time.
• Consistent Quality and Accuracy
• Working with a coding specialist like HCRS
  assures you of receiving services with a high
  standard of accuracy and quality. We have a vast
  team of talented coders and years of experience
  with medical coding. For the Army, Navy, and Air
  Force, we classify and audit more than 3 million
  medical records annually, and we regularly
  achieve accuracy rates of 95 or higher.
• You can be sure that you'll get the same level of
  quality even if the volume of records rises
  thanks to the flexibility that a medical coding
  outsourcing company may provide. Additionally,
  you don't need to be concerned about quality and
  accuracy standards dropping because of labor
  shortages or coding guideline changes on
  particular days.

5

• Transparency
• Your chosen coding business will be able to give
  you thorough records and performance summaries
  regarding your medical bills. You may receive
  these reports automatically or if you ask for
  them. You have fantastic insight into your coding
  and billing thanks to this, which makes it
  easier for you to gain a fuller understanding of
  how your practice runs.
• You don't need to spend time keeping meticulous
  records or even managing people in order to get
  these insights. You should also think about this
  benefit while considering whether to hire or
  outsource medical coding specialists.
• Outsource medical coding services has become a
  strategic choice for many healthcare providers
  and facilities. This practice involves
  contracting external professionals or specialized
  agencies to handle the intricate task of
  translating medical diagnoses, procedures, and
  treatments into standardized codes for billing,
  insurance claims, and record-keeping purposes.
• Security and Compliance
• For many healthcare businesses, security and
  regulatory compliance are major concerns. To
  guard against data loss and other cyber
  catastrophes when it comes to medical coding and
  billing, you must have strong data security and
  disaster recovery mechanisms in place.
• Additionally, you must guarantee HIPAA and other
  requirements are followed.
• A reputable coding company will comprehend the
  security and compliance issues connected to your
  coding requirements. Even while you should always
  exercise caution on your end, you can be sure
  that your coding business is doing the same.
• Conclusion
• Outsourcing medical coding presents a compelling
  case for healthcare providers seeking to
  optimize their operations and revenue cycle
  management. From cost savings and expert coding
  knowledge to scalability and enhanced compliance,
  the benefits of outsourcing are extensive.
• However, providers must carefully evaluate
  potential outsourcing partners to ensure a
  seamless transition and a successful
  collaboration that ultimately improves patient
  care and financial outcomes.