We have the opportunity to work with many different clients and each practice has specific needs regarding medical record keeping. Some of our clients are entirely paperless and exclusively use an Electronic Health Records (EHR). Some of our clients are bucking the trend toward electronic records and maintain the tried-and-true record keeping developed over the lifetime of their practice. We work with clients of both backgrounds and can confidently say that however your practice approaches EHRs (or not), your medical billing is NOT bound by the system that you choose.
We support practices that use paper superbills by helping them to develop highly-customized superbill layouts and efficient systems for sharing their encounters with us for review and submission. Even some of our clients with EHR’s choose to use the EHR for medical documentation while still using superbills as a means of accounting for billing data. Other EHR-clients have integrated their billing data directly to our software via HL7 interfaces. Our billing software and patient scheduler is capable of interfacing with all major EHR systems. And the benefit of using our billing service over the built-in billing components of an EMR?
Attention, expertise, claims review, and accounts receivable follow-up. Any system can have a button pushed to submit claims data to a clearinghouse – but the practices that are most viable are those that have experts that REVIEW billing data prior to submission and FOLLOW UP on claims once they are sent.
Another FAQ that we receive on the EHR/No-EHR topic concerns the new MIPS & MACRA program rolled out by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. It is important for all practices to know that with or without an EHR, a practice can successfully avoid the scheduled 2019 penalty based on the reporting done this year (2017 dates of service).
There are three main reporting options for MIPS:
- Claims —- Report specific billing codes to report on quality measures. (These codes are reported in the same way that CPT’s are used, with the exception that these codes have $0 value attached and are solely used as a reporting measure).
- Data Registries — Find a CMS-approved vendor (there are many) with whom you can submit a batch of data via an end-of-the-year submission.
- EHR – Any EHR worth its salt should be capable of data extraction and reporting.
For practices without an EHR, the first two options are available. For those with EHR’s, all 3 options are available, though the latter two are likely the more efficient.
Remember – whether you are using an EHR or not, you always have options for how to best handle your medical billing needs. Now more than ever we must remember that technology is meant to provide MORE opportunity and flexibility, rather than narrowing your choices. The area of EHRs and medical billing is no exception: find the option that works best for you.
