Improving Quality And Revenue In Face Of Healthcare Reforms

The recent healthcare reforms proposed by the white house may affect the revenue as well as the quality of the service provided by physicians in the United States. According to a recent survey by Thomson Reuters, almost two-third of doctors in the US fear that health care reforms proposed by Mr. Obama might flood their offices which in turn would mean reduced individual attention to patients. Simply put, doctors would end up working more for lesser remuneration.


The survey also reveals that almost 68% of doctors think that the quality of service would drop because of the reforms. However, repealing the bill would also mean that more than 100 million people under the age of 65 would not be able to get health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Nevertheless, the repeal of this bill is likely to fail in the senate. This effectively means that doctors would have to find a solution for plugging the gap between demand and supply of health care services.


2,958 doctors were surveyed by Thomson Reuters and physician services company HCPlexus in various states and of different specialties. When asked about how they were going to handle the newly insured, more than half of them said they would have to delegate the work to an assistant or a nurse. Although this may ease the pressure on doctors, it is just a make-shift solution for a change that looms large and can take place in as less as four years.


Electronic medical records might help according to 39% of doctors who were surveyed. Moreover, delegating administrative work can also be a solution. For instance, all billing and coding can be taken care of by highly trained professionals resulting in better time management and increased revenue.


The health care reform may be a radical change but still everyone would not be covered for everything and it would still be a good practice to send electronic files to a clearing house for determining eligibility. This can save time because it would reduce the amount of claims which are denied. Providing the patients with an electronic version of the bill and E-statements instead of mailing a paper bill would further cut costs by as much as 12 to 15%.


Some resident doctors would find themselves busier than before and since Federal law does not place any limit on the working hours of residents, it would be inevitable that they would spend more and more hours treating patients who are newly insured. Although the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has limited the work hours of residents to 80 hours, many residents work more and report less for fear of losing accreditation. This can be advantageous for doctors who would rely on nurses, residents and assistants to catch-up with the increasing demand for health care services.


There is no quick-fix solution to this since we cannot “import” doctors from other countries and the number of doctors and nurses cannot increase to a level in such a short period of time where they would be able to meet the demands. However, since Medicare is responsible for funding a majority of residency programs, there is a possibility that the recent bottleneck in such funding can be solved in the years to come which would result in recruitment and training of new residents. Moreover, there has been a growth of around 4% in residency slots from 1998-2004 which is the result of funding from a large number of teaching hospitals.


Some branches of medicine such as radiology and internal medicine do not require long working hours and can cope with increased volume of work. However, most of the branches would struggle to cope with the increased work pressure if a pragmatic solution is not developed before the reforms take place.


The biggest advantage a doctor or a health care provider can have are good medical billers and coders who can ensure quality even when meeting deadlines. This will make the process smoother for the physician as well as relieve him or her of work pressure. Now looking for Medical Billing Specialists locally and specialized in your specialty could be more taxing. In these trying times Medical Billers and Coders from every state, city and specialty have come together and are available to physicians at no cost at www.medicalbillersandcoders.com

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Impact Of Baby-Boomers Coupled With The Health-Care Reforms

Baby boomers are usually believed to be people born during the post-World War II birth rate boom, lasting from 1946 through 1964. According to a survey conducted by the CDC (Center for disease control), many elderly people started flooding doctors’ offices even ten years ago in 2001. Now since the latest health care reforms would extend coverage to people who previously were denied medical cover due to myriad reasons doctors, hospices, and hospitals would find themselves busier than before.

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According to the CDC, many would seek preventive care and visit physicians for chronic illnesses in addition to obtaining newly launched drugs. The most common ailment that these elderly suffer from is diabetes which needs continual monitoring and treatment in order to ward off other diseases that can be the result of mismanagement of diabetes.

Even though people in the baby boomers generation did visit doctors more often in 2001, many were denied the care due to lack of proper health insurance. Now since the health care reforms would extend coverage to more citizens, it would not be a surprise if the number of elderly visiting hospitals and doctors would dramatically increase. This in turn would mean longer working hours for doctors, nurses, and residents and more interaction with the insurance companies. In face of such demand for health services it becomes crucial to manage efficiency and accuracy since this can turn out to be literally a matter of life and death for many elderly patients.

Another factor that would affect the number of elderly visiting doctors’ offices is increase in life expectancy. It has been observed by the CDC that there is a greater continuity in doctor-patient relationship for baby boomers. This means that the same patient would visit the same physician more number of times which also presents the dilemma of customer retention for physicians. Moreover, the elderly usually have multiple conditions or illnesses which require more effort from doctors.

Many experts believe that the health-care reform would work well for older patients since this means boomers who are unemployed or underemployed will be able to get health care insurance. New benefits would be provided for people above the age of 50 by closing the part D “Donut hole” under Medicare which would provide long term care assistance.

The best way to manage the flooding of your offices with baby boomers is to have a staff that knows all the procedures which are related to insurance, medical billing, coding and transcription. It is apparent that a conventional receptionist cannot perform these services and professional billers and coders would be required in order to increase revenue, manage time and ensure minimum accounts receivables. This can only be achieved if a team of professional billers and coders are hired in order to save time and increase effectiveness of the treatment provided by you.

If you seek skilled professionals who can perform Medical Billing and Coding jobs for you, please visit www.medicalbillersandcoders.com, the largest consortium of Medical Billers and Coders covering all 50 states.

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Delivering Quality Service To Patients At Lesser Costs

The reforms in the health care sector would essentially mean that physicians have to deliver quality service at lower costs. This is inevitable since doctors and hospitals can be penalized for negligence if they end up giving the wrong treatment due to increased work pressure and in order to meet the break-even point. As 45 million uninsured around the country are going to be covered under the reforms by the year 2014, it would become difficult to manage time and provide quality care at the same time.


The healthcare reform bill would essentially mean that health care providers would drown in work. The major issue here is not just dealing with the patients but also with the insurance companies and other necessities such as medical billing, coding, denial management and accounts receivables. When you want to concentrate on patient care then dealing with these auxiliary functions yourself may be taxing on you.

The perfect solution would be to hire professionals for the coding, billing and other functions such as accounts receivables to a team of experts who are not only professionals but are also experienced. It would not be pragmatic to hire a single person or an office assistant to perform these functions since it would not ensure quality in face of increased Medical Billing requirements.

The best way out is to hire people who are well trained in handling specialty such as yours and keep abreast of all the changes in the billing and coding. Such professionals can conduct quality checks and audits along with prioritization so that you receive the full value for the services that you have been rendered. They can also provide credentialing with new payers and handle all payer queries and get your claims paid.

All the above factors combined would mean that you do not face reduced revenues due to such other essential jobs. This would greatly relieve you of the burden of issues not directly related to your core job responsibilities. As we move towards a world where insurance companies are reining and getting insurance would be compulsory for everyone, it makes sense to hire experts who can assist you in doing your job in a smoother and efficient manner.

Medical Billers and Coders would like to be available for your requirements, thus they have together and are categorized as per specialty, experience, software known and locality. They can be easily found on www.medicalbillersandcoders.com, the largest consortium of billers across 50 states.

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