The healthcare industry at present has over 70,000 billable codes to tackle — a nightmare for urgent care medical billing staff, no doubt. Though medical coders and billers work using billing software, the sheer volume can be a tough task to handle. The workload causes errors which in turn leads to delays and claims denials.
These constraints are leading to urgent care centers looking to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) for their medical billing and coding workflow. This is not only promising by way of decreasing dependence on labor but is also great for the revenue cycle of any urgent care center.
Even though the world of digitization is not new to healthcare, the process of medical billing and coding has largely continued to be manual. This has led to many experienced billing and coding specialists having to cope with miscalculations and errors that find their way into patient records.
AI may have not become the industry standard, yet, but there are plenty of benefits that it has to offer. We’ve listed three of them here in a bid to explain how AI may soon be the future and have a major role to play in revenue cycle management (RCM) in urgent care facilities.
- Improved Billing and Coding Accuracy
What AI does is give the systems the ability to learn the language for medical procedures and diagnoses, which then in turn assign codes accurately to each individual case. This ensures that only correct codes are used and that they comply with the specific medical documentation.
AI also aids bidding and coding staff in formatting, storing, and retrieving precise medical information and records. When coding and billing errors are reduced it affects the RCM as well as work quality in the organization. With AI, transiting from one code to the next at the time of carrying out updates is hardly any pain at all.
- Streamlined Billing Workflow
Manual medical billing and coding drastically increases costs and also leads to errors and miscalculations. When AI is used to ascertain user habits, understand and anticipate their requirements, along with fetching the correct data at the right time, it automatically betters the entire medical billing and coding workflow.
This reduces the dependency on billing and coding staff as well as brings down the overall costs. A better and efficient process ensures a profitable RCM as well as happy and satisfied patients at your urgent care practice.
- Reduced Claims Denials
Apart from optimizing the backend, AI also aids in filing claims. This leads to reduced errors while filing which to a large extent ensures that insurance companies cannot delay or deny claims on the basis of errors alone.
Reduced claims denials means a healthier RCM and happy patients. This is because due to low numbers of claims denials your reimbursements happen on time and your patients too are able to avail quality services without any hindrances.
Future of AI in Urgent Care Billing
At present the urgent care billing and coding process is heavily dependent on trained billing professionals. AI can put an end to this dependability. Accurate patient records will lead to improved cash flow and better patient care.
Absence of a manual billing and coding workflow will improve the quality of work hours in urgent care centers. With AI only a minimal amount of information will need to be keyed in manually. Not only do AI-driven technologies perform more tasks, they also narrow down the margins of error and lead to an improved RCM.
If you’re seeking guidance to outsource your medical billing and coding process and are interested in knowing how AI can enhance your RCM, call GMB billing experts at 786-725-2120; 655-469-1422 to learn more. Our specialists understand the intricacies involved in urgent care billing and coding and will help provide billing and coding solutions customized to suit your needs.
