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Anesthesia Billing Software: Client Web Portal

The conventional anesthesia medical billing industry perspective always held that cash is king. This belief and focus continues to inspire the ongoing review and refinement of ABC’s processes. Management is always looking for ways to optimize cash flow, minimize compliance risks and help the practice identify new revenue opportunities for the organization. The problem is, this is no longer enough to ensure survival and success in an increasingly complex and dynamic market for healthcare services. Business intelligence is the new market imperative. Just as anesthesia providers rely on their monitors to make clinical decisions in a matter of seconds in the operating room, so too, anesthesia practice managers must have ready access to production and performance data to make strategic decisions in the board room.

ABC offers its clients a web portal with three basic functions. The portal allows members of the practice to view and download monthly management reports as soon as they are produced. It also permits the viewing of individual patient accounts. A special feature even provides on-line access to the company’s dataware house, an option that allows for unlimited manipulation and analysis of all the details of the practice.

As is true of any powerful management tool, some orientation and training will be required for key members of a practice or their administrative staff to fully realize the potential of this powerful technology. Typically, a new client will want to wait a few months until the repository of data contains enough information for meaningful trend and pattern assessment. Usually by the fourth or fifth month astute data managers are already making critical management decisions based on insights they have gained from their own review of the data in the warehouse.

Anesthesia Billing Software: Automated Remittance Processing

Posting the details of insurance payments to a patient ledger might not seem like such a significant aspect of accounts receivable management, but it is actually trickier than many would suppose. Not only must all payments be identified and applied to the proper account, reliable payment assessment requires that we also capture the details of the allowable deductibles still due and patient co-payment responsibilities.

Large bulk payments can be time consuming and problematic to review manually. Automated remittance processing greatly expedites payment posting and significantly increases the accuracy of the result.

While it is true that not all commercial payors provide electronic remittance advices, all public payors and most major plans do. As is true of any other type of interface, the technical requirements can be complex and subject to modification without notice. Our anesthesia billing software, F1RSTAnesthesia, was specifically designed to accommodate this invaluable option. Our in-house programming team ensures that each payor’s specifications are met for optimum efficiency and effectiveness.

Anesthesia Billing Software: Patient Demographic Interfaces

Every hospital captures patient demographics in a slightly different way. Variability and inconsistencies in the information itself can create significant challenges to the timely and accurate submission of anesthesia claims. Unlike office-based specialties, hospital-based specialists have very limited resources and options to verify patient insurance and coverage information.

Not only does ABC have extensive experience setting up patient demographic interfaces with every commonly used hospital information system, but our anesthesia billing software, F1RSTAnesthesia, provides interface verification and scrubbing to ensure information downloaded for billing is more reliable and useful. This is critical to consistent claims submission. It also allows ABC staff to identify demographic omissions and errors faster so they can be resolved before the claim is submitted, rather than waiting for the costly denial after the fact.

ABC is also able to establish remote access to the hospital information system to ensure updates to the initial information can be obtained when necessary. Such tools also allow us to print anesthesia records and other key pieces of the chart without involving hospital staff.

Any medical practice with an exclusive contract with a facility and certainly any practice that receives financial support should realize the value of such connectivity. Timely and accurate claims submission should never be a rate-limiting step to a practice’s financial management. With ABC’s powerful arsenal of anesthesia billing software and interface tools, it doesn’t have to be.