Should You Outsource Orthotics Billing?

Gaining a Perspective on Orthotics Billing

As U.S. economy continues to struggle against a rapidly rising rate of inflation (in fact, among the fastest in the last 40 years) and battle a price rise everywhere, Orthotics billing has rarely faced a more difficult challenge to keep costs down and maintain even minimum profitability. The situation has been worsened by an acute shortage of skilled labor. Many who had earlier been involved in billing operations, have changed jobs or gone into retirement since the pandemic. Minimum wages are also on the rise, which in turn is made hiring new resources a costly affair for most Orthotics & Prosthetics practices.

In the face of such socio-economic crisis, O&P providers are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain regular operations without burning a hole in their pockets. Changes in payor norms, hiccups in the supply chain and other related factors are continuing to contribute to the growing crisis. So it is natural that a large number of practices are choosing to outsource their Orthotics billing tasks to specialized, third party, billing service providers. But is it a good idea? Let’s investigate.

An edge, or an impediment?

The very mention of the word outsourcing tends to elicit a mixed response. There have been instances when outsourcing has led to a disappointing outcome. However, the general verdict is, having a skilled partner working for you can prove to be immensely beneficial. And Orthotics billing is no exception, which can benefit tremendously from strategic, offshore outsourcing. 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.

What’s more, most of these specialized 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. The latter, especially, is a win-win situation where the billers get paid only if you get paid. The list of benefits, however, doesn’t stop here. So if you are seriously worried about keeping operational cost under control and streamlining the revenue generation process, an experienced offshore billing partner can truly help your business get a competitive edge in the market and leave you free from many worries pertaining to billing and collections.