Mental health services are incredibly important, and if you operate a mental health services practice or behavioral health center, you know this more than anyone. Managing a practice can be an incredibly complex task, and one of the primary reasons is because of the complexity and utter necessity of medical billing for mental health services. Navigating the complexities of mental health medical billing can be incredibly challenging for both providers as well as patients. We’re going to take a look at the intricacies of medical billing for mental health services, talk about why it’s critical to understand the latest billing codes and look at an easier way to manage the entire billing and revenue cycle.
Why Mental Health Medical Billing Is So Important
Just like any other practice in the medical or healthcare field, mental health and behavioral health providers need to be able to code and bill effectively and efficiently to receive appropriate reimbursement from insurance companies and patients. This ensures the practice has steady and predictable revenue, which allows for the continued operation and maintenance of the practice itself. Additionally, being able to bill correctly and accurately means your patients won’t be dealing with overcharges and denials, resulting in higher satisfaction levels overall.
Understanding Mental Health Billing Codes
To more easily understand the complexities of mental health and behavioral health medical billing, it’s important to look at the various codes that are frequently associated with medical billing for mental health services.
ICD-10 Codes
The International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) is a coding system used for the classification and reporting of diagnoses. ICD-10 codes are used by mental health providers to document a specific diagnosis for a patient, such as major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and substance use disorder.
CPT Codes
Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes describe the specific services or treatments that are provided by behavioral health or mental health service providers. These codes are used to indicate psychotherapy sessions, group therapy, counseling, and psychiatric diagnostic evaluations.
HCPCS Codes
The Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes are used for billing services, programs, or items that aren’t covered by CPT codes, such as psychiatric medication management.
Navigating Insurance and Reimbursement for Mental Health Services
There are countless potential benefits of working with a leading cardiology billing service, and while this list is hardly exhaustive, it should be a solid representation of what types of results you can expect at your practice. Depending on your practice’s unique needs, you may even see an entirely separate array of benefits manifest. Here are some common examples.
Increased Focus On Patient Care
While the primary focus of your practice is to provide care for your patients, an undeniable and crucial element of that is your cardiology medical billing. When you partner with a cardiology medical billing company, you are able to refocus your team’s attention on providing the best standard of care possible. Not having to deal with coding and billing means you will be able to boost your daily patient flow as well.
Decreased Administrative Burden
One of the biggest drawbacks to keeping your cardiology billing in-house is the massive administrative workload it places on you and your staff. Since this often falls on the front-desk staff, it directly affects one of the most important patient-facing components of your practice. Without that administrative burden, your staff is able to spend more time addressing the patient’s needs, which makes appointments more efficient and increases patient flow overall.
Boosted Revenue
When you work with a cardiology medical billing company, you’ll likely see a marked increase in revenue, sometimes as much as by one-third. You’ll be able to see a shortened billing and payment cycle, and without the expense of training, compliance, and credentialing for an in-house team, you could see significant savings on top of boosted revenue. Overall, outsourcing your cardiology billing services can make your practice more profitable.
Lower Billing Error Rate
The biggest cause of claim denials is incorrect coding due to human error, and by allowing AMS Solutions to manage your coding, you can achieve a more than 99% accuracy rate and can ensure that all of the claims your practice generates are submitted within the billing window. Your billing company will also track all of your denied and rejected claims, as well as late payments from patients and payers, and will keep you updated constantly on the performance of your practice.
Improved Patient Satisfaction Rate
Since you and your staff will no longer be distracted by coding and billing duties and administrative work related to that process, the improved level of care you provide to your patients significantly improves your overall patient satisfaction rate. This also results in a more healthy and positive work environment locally, because your staff isn’t spread thin on other tasks.
Secure Confidential Data
Personal confidential medical information is the most frequently targeted data by thieves, and outsourcing your billing and coding to a specialized company can help you maintain a higher level of data security than otherwise. Since a billing company deals heavily in patient information, they are able to keep a far higher level of security and breach prevention than the average practice.
Maintain Seamless Compliance
With a billing service, you won’t ever have to worry about training your front desk team on new coding updates, and instead can trust AMS Solutions to stay on top of the constantly-changing world of cardiology medical billing and coding. We stay current on all industry standards and compliance requirements and will make sure your practice is fully compliant with all regulations and requirements.
Outsourcing Mental Health Medical Billing - Reduce Your Workload And Streamline Your Practice
While each practice is unique and is likely to experience benefits unique to its needs, some benefits are experienced in nearly every implementation of outsourced mental health medical billing. Let’s take a look at a few of those benefits, here:
Boosted Revenue & Lower Denials
One of the biggest reasons that mental health and behavioral health practices outsource their billing and coding, is that the team of trained experts that handles your account. They can dramatically reduce errors and effectively stop denials and delays. This means you’re paid more than what you deserve.
Enhanced Cash Flow
Along with outsourcing billing services comes a much quicker billing cycle, since the claim processing time has been cut down significantly. The highly refined billing processes of AMS Solutions mean fewer errors and fast reimbursements.
Less Administrative Burden
Keeping billing in-house comes with a long list of additional worries. There’s the compensation, the benefits, training, compliance and credentialing, and more. When you partner with a leading billing service like AMS Solutions, your team can refocus on the patients, and you can refocus those resources where they can be best utilized in your practice.
Easy Compliance
The need for updated credentialing, current compliance, and adherence to current federal regulations means keeping billing in-house can be a costly proposition. Outsourcing to a leader in the medical billing space like AMS Solutions, however, means you’re delegating your billing to a company that invests considerable resources into ensuring the best billing services in the nation.
Leading Technology
With a commitment to being a leader in the medical billing space, AMS Solutions leverages the latest technology and state-of-the-art software. With cutting-edge software integration, we can provide you with real-time visibility into your claims and revenue information.
AMS Solutions Is A Leader In Medical Billing For Mental Health Services
It can be hard enough to deal with the complexities of medical billing for mental health services, but understanding the various ins and outs can help make it a little easier. Implementing best practices and having expert knowledge of current billing codes can give your practice an even better shot at success. However, when it comes down to it, outsourcing those medical billing tasks to a company that specializes in those services can be one of the best moves you can make for your business. Reach out to AMS Solutions to discuss your needs or to get started.
