Jul 28
2016
A Billing Service for Your Small Practice: To Hire or Not to Hire
Guest post by Saqib Ayaz, co-founder, Workflow Optimization. 
A question that many businesses dither about is whether outsourcing their billing will be profitable to them or not. Third-party services can help make billing smoother as compared to the in-house process that involves using billing software. While some practices think outsourcing to be the right decision because that allows them to make use of the experts, their resources, and the timely manner in which the job is finished. However, others think doing it all in-house will help them maintain control over their practice. Caught in the same conundrum? Don’t worry! We can help! Here are a few reasons why outsourcing is a good idea:
In-house billing is costly
If you have been thinking that outsourcing is expensive then just try adding the expenses of in-house billing and you are in for a surprise. The expenses will include:
- What you will be paying the billers
- How much employee benefits will cost you
- How much the technology systems will cost you
Outsourced billing is less expensive
Outsourcing seems like a good idea for startups, especially small ones, and transitioning businesses dealing with an employee who has resigned.
In-house billing comes with liabilities
A billing department is chock full of liabilities. Here are two of the sources from which said liabilities may originate:
- Embezzlement
- Employee neglect
Thus, they require constant and strict supervision from the manager all the time.
Outsourced billing is transparent
This sounds like an easier option because you can ask the billing service to send you occasional performance reports or have them sent automatically. With everything right under your eye, you will not have to micromanage everything that goes on with billing.
In-house billing will cause support issues
Small practices are more likely to assign an employee or three to the billing department. In case one of them goes MIA or falls sick, the company’s operations, and more importantly, cash flow will grind to a halt.
Outsourced billing will increase the level of consistency
When you hire someone else to do the work, it will mean that staffing will be the outsourcer’s headache and not yours. They will also be bound by a contract to report a certain level of success every time.
Other factors to consider
You should definitely outsource billing, if:
- It takes longer to collect payment from a payer every time while the collections keep dropping; the number of rejected claims is on the increase
- Billing department of your practice has a high rate of staff turnover. If your billing department can process claims quickly, it will affect your practice negatively.
- The technical issues that keep cropping up every now and then take a lot of time to get resolved. You are not technically sound while it costs a lot to train your staff to become so.
The Right Approach
Whether outsourcing billing operations is feasible or not is something that will definitely vary from practice to practice. Decisive factors will include how old a practice is and the state its finances are in. However, it does seem to be the right approach for most small practices.