medical Billing - Electronic Billing Pros and Cons

Everything in our world is becoming more and more automated. The days of paper are becoming things of the past. Who uses typewriters any more? True, they've been replaced by computers and printers, but with the coming of email and modems, data doesn't have to be printed at all any more. This is also true of healing billing to insurance carriers. With electronic billing, no longer do we have to send them a paper Hicfa, but is it all good? We're going to take a devils advocate advent to electronic billing and eye both the pros and cons of sending your bills electronically.

The pros are easy to see. With electronic billing, you obviously save a lot of paper. No longer do you have to print out each bill. With electronic billing, by using a modem, you can send that bill directly to the carrier. Not only does this save paper, but it also saves postage. The cost of that phone call, which in most cases is an 800 number, is a lot less than the cost of sending these bills snail mail.

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Another pro of electronic billing is accuracy. The programs that are created to send these claims electronically have built in checks for errors, since a human still has to enter the information. After the data for the bill is entered, you can run another agenda that checks to make sure that everything and we do mean everything, is filled out completely. whatever missing or in error is displayed on an error description which can whether be printed or viewed directly on the computer.

Another pro of electronic billing is speed, not only of how fast the claim gets to the carrier, since they don't have to wait for the mail, but of how fast claims are paid. The imagine claims are paid quicker in this manner is that the receiving carrier also has a agenda that checks for errors, so the claim itself doesn't have to be manually reviewed. This speeds up the process.

It would seem from all of this that there can't be whatever bad about electronic healing billing. Oh, if only that were the truth. Unfortunately, there are things that can go wrong and all too often, do go wrong.

For starters, computers act up. Programs have bugs, especially when they are new. Because the healing business is enduringly changing, these programs have to be enduringly updated. When this happens, bugs do pop up. When that happens, claims can't be submitted until the bugs are fixed. This can effectively shut down billers for days. Not a pretty sight.

Another qoute is with the actual transmission of the data itself. Modems can act up and often do. Sometimes there's just a qoute with the phone line. There may be noise on it. Unlike talking on the phone, the transmitting of data requires a excellent association or the data doesn't send properly. When this happens, the claims are rejected even though they may be valid. The data just becomes corrupted.

For the most part, electronic healing billing is a remarkable thing, but problems do occur and it is important to be ready for those problems.

medical Billing - Electronic Billing Pros and Cons

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History Of Electronic Medical Records

In the 1960s, a physician named Lawrence L. Weed first described the concept of computerized or electronic medical records. Weed described a system to automate and reorganize patient medical records to enhance their utilization and thereby lead to improved patient care.

Weed's work formed the basis of the PROMIS project at the University of Vermont, a collaborative effort between physicians and information technology experts started in 1967 to develop an automated electronic medical record system. The project's objectives were to develop a system that would provide timely and sequential patient data to the physician, and enable the rapid collection of data for epidemiological studies, medical audits and business audits. The group's efforts led to the development of the problem-oriented medical record, or POMR. Also, in the 1960s, the Mayo Clinic began developing electronic medical record systems.

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In 1970, the POMR was used in a medical ward of the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont for the first time. At this time, touchscreen technology had been incorporated into data entry procedures. Over the next few years, drug information elements were added to the core program, allowing physicians to check for drug actions, dosages, side effects, allergies and interactions. At the same time, diagnostic and treatment plans for over 600 common medical problems were devised.

During the 1970s and 1980s, several electronic medical record systems were developed and further refined by various academic and research institutions. The Technicon system was hospital-based, and Harvard's COSTAR system had records for ambulatory care. The HELP system and Duke's 'The Medical Record' are examples of early in-patient care systems. Indiana's Regenstrief record was one of the earliest combined in-patient and outpatient systems.

With advancements in computer and diagnostic applications during the 1990s, electronic medical record systems became increasingly complex and more widely used by practices. In the 21st century, more and more practices are implementing electronic medical records.

History Of Electronic Medical Records

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