The Benefits of Outsourcing Urgent Care Billing

A Critical Look at in-house Urgent Care Billing

Many Urgent Care facilities prefer employing and maintaining an in-house panel of billers and coders to take care of all their billing needs. Admittedly, it is also a better way to have more control on the Urgent Care billing process. However, working with an in-house staff invariably increases the cost of operations for any practice. What many Urgent Care practices tend to overlook is that employing conventional billing staff means adding to their regular workforce, and this entails paying them a fixed salary according to the local pay-scale, compensating for leaves and absences, and also having to deal with unexpected employment terminations, as may result from attrition or premature retirement.

Another major challenge in building an in-house team is finding competent and skilled medical billing personnel. This is an acute problem amidst the current dearth of skilled labor in the market, especially in these post-pandemic times. Moreover, a rise in minimum wages, which has already been implemented in many states and have been proposed in others, means that providers are now required to pay more to their employees than before.

Finding The Right Balance of Economy and Efficiency

In view of such issues, a rapidly expanding number of Urgent Care facilities are choosing to outsource their billing affairs to dedicated, professional agencies, specializing in lending complete support in medical billing matters. The decision is fueled not just by the concerns mentioned above, by a realization of the fact that such a strategic move brings with it a host of other benefits as well.

To begin with, deciding to outsource Urgent Care billing instantly saves providers all the hassles of having to scour the market for skilled billers, having to buy additional software licenses, arrange for extra office space to accommodate the new recruits and so on. In a typical outsourced scenario, providers can enjoy instant access to a ready pool of billers, coders, front-desk executives, customer care executives and other revenue cycle management personnel – all standing by to start working immediately. There are no worries about training them, or providing them with the tools to work with, or having to deal with employee benefits or absenteeism which would apply in a conventional in-house scenario.

One of the biggest benefits, of course, that outsourcing – especially, offshore outsourcing – can help providers slash their billing costs by a substantial margin. This is made possible by the fact that external billing agencies charge providers on the actual hours of work, or the number of claims handled successfully. The best part is, such charges are based on rates that are remarkably lower than the local U.S. market.