Improving Your Orthotics Billing Workflow

The state of Orthotics Billing

Billing for Orthotics & Prosthetics, commonly shortened and referred to as Orthotics billing, share many of the difficulties and complexities that mark other kinds of medical billing. It requires the same degrees of attention and accuracy as other types of medical billing in order to ensure success. And if one asks, what constitutes success in Orthotics billing, the answer would be, most likely, a higher pass rate, more collections and fewer denials.

Ensuring these, however, is not an easy task. As U.S. economy continues to struggle against a rapidly rising rate of inflation (in fact, among the fastest in the last 40 years according to the financial pundits) and battle a price rise in virtually every sphere of life, Orthotics billing has rarely faced a more difficult challenge to keep costs down and yet remain efficient and profitable. It is a crisis that has been further worsened by an acute shortage of skilled labor. Many erstwhile billers and coders, who were engaged in billing operations, have changed jobs or gone into retirement since the onset of the pandemic. Minimum wages are also on the rise, which in turn is making hiring new resources an extremely costly affair for most Orthotics & Prosthetics practices.

Overcoming Your Billing Obstacles

When the socio-economic picture is so grim, it is easy to understand why O&P providers everywhere are finding it so difficult to sustain regular operations without compromising on their overall profitability. Regular changes in payor norms, interruptions in the supply chain and other related factors are continuing to contribute to the growing crisis. So is there a way to overcome these mounting obstacles and get the bottom line back on track?

Luckily, the answer is yes. And it’s called offshore outsourcing. If such a large (and rapidly growing) number of Orthotics practices are outsourcing their billing to specialized, third party billing service providers, there must be a good reason for it. Let’s find out.

Having a skilled partner working for you can prove to be immensely beneficial. A major advantage that providers enjoy upon engaging a specialized, third-party billing expert is an overall improvement in the rate of collections and a general streamlining of the revenue cycle. Denial rates drop sharply, more bills get passed in unit time and the rate of collections increases.

However, the real benefit lies in the highly economical rates at which such services can be procured. Most vendors are available to work at a fixed hourly rate, or at a certain percentage of the total collections they are successful at generating for you. These figures are way lower than what it would cost an O&P provider to recruit and sustain and regular in-house team of billers and collectors. So, if inflation is keeping you awake, it’s time to outsource and start getting your bottom line back on track again.