Behavioral Health Billing Software
When it comes to running a behavioral health facility, there are many factors that you have to consider. If you are running such a facility, you are most likely trying to focus on factors such as how you interact with patients, the type of treatment you offer, and staying up to date with the latest scientific treatment the health community has to offer. All of these services are about improving the care for your patients. It’s what matters most.
Except, there’s a common problem that plagues many behavioral health facilities and practices—billing. Many behavioral health facilities struggle with managing they’re billing and administrative processes. Why? Most care providers are focused on the specific treatments that can help their patients but neglect the important administrative work. This administrative work could not only benefit your practice but your patients as well. If this sounds like you, you may need to enlist the help of the right behavioral health billing software.
What is Behavioral Health Software and How Does It Help You?
This software handles the billing process of a behavioral health center or practice. There is specific medical billing software targeted at behavioral health, and there is general medical billing software that can benefit your behavioral health practice. Behavioral health software is designed to simplify and automate your billing tasks. Not only can this save you time, but help you provide a better customer experience for your patients.
Behavioral health billing provides some unique challenges that software can help you overcome such as:
Billing Codes:
Behavioral health coding can often be complex and require special care. Without the help of specific software, this process can cost valuable time and produce incorrect coding. In turn, this results in denied claims and lost revenue.
Claims Process:
Most practices are trying to improve their claims processing and timing. More claims processed equals more revenue and a better functioning practice. If you are looking to improve your claims process from start to finish, then you need software that will empower your administrative team to submit claims faster as well as catch mistakes before a denial.
State and Federal Regulation:
Unless you have someone in-house to keep up to date with state and federal regulations, it can be hard to track those changes. Fortunately, behavioral health billing software can keep you updated with notifications about changes within your region.
Features of Behavioral Health Billing Software
While every software has its own unique features and perks for customers to take advantage of, there are some general features that you’ll find among suppliers. Before selecting any software, you need to know exactly how it will benefit your practice. Identify the key areas you need support in, whether that be coding or customer support. Here are some of the top features you’ll find on the market today.
File & Track Claims
Billing software makes it easy to file claims correctly and track them throughout the entire process. Most software contains a section in which they can track which claims have been made, which have not, claims that are still processing, and claims that have been denied. This can make it easy to pinpoint how fast you are processing claims and identify bottlenecks.
Reporting & Analytics
When it comes to running any type of business the more data you have the better off you’ll be. Most medical billing software will give you the ability to track how your business is doing on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. This data can be used to show increases in revenue and can even help you identify new areas of revenue. Identify metrics like KPIs, payer rejections, exclusion rates, performance comparisons, projections, and more! If need a specific tool, make sure you ask a supplier before purchasing.
Automation & Templates
Would you like to speed up the process of your medical billing? Most practices would. Behavioral health billing software can help provide templates and automation features to make billing as simple and as easy as possible. Even small practices can save time and energy for administration staff with the right software. Furthermore, this can be an invaluable tool for larger practices. Even small reductions in processing times can result in returns of much higher profits.
Batch Submission
One tool that can be very effective, but not many people talk about, is the ability for batch submissions. This feature allows you to batch your submissions all in one go. Instead of submitting one at a time, you can do multiple days’ worth of submissions at once. This can be very beneficial for smaller practices or those with unique situations.
Why Should You Use Behavioral Health Billing Software?
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to medical billing software, there are some major benefits to using the software. Most practices can benefit from automating their services and using top-of-the-line technology to stay ahead of their competition. Here are some of the key reasons you should consider behavioral health billing software.
Automate Your Workload / Template / Digitize Your Documents
Don't rely on paper charts or fax machines. Go electronic with your paperwork with medical billing software. You can log patient information in the system and easily find it with a quick search. Moreover, medical billing software can simplify administrative tasks with billing templates and automated checks for missing or incorrect data. While this doesn't mean that you take out the human element entirely, you can reduce the workload on your administrative staff.
Reduce Claim Denials or Incorrect Coding
Medical billing software can help you spot mistakes as they are happening. A majority of rejected claims come from incorrect billing or incomplete patient information. Billing software can help you spot these mistakes and correct them before submitting claims to insurers. the more claims you can process the better your revenue cycle management will be.
Provide Patients with Accessibility
Because patient documents are now digitized in an online billing system it is much easier to send documents securely. It is also much easier to track when documents were sent to a biller or patient and who sent those documents.
Better Claims Tracking
When you don't have medical billing software, it can be much more difficult to track claims. With the software application, you can track multiple different claims at multiple different stages all in one dashboard. This makes it much easier to not only complete claims but improves your administrative policies to ensure faster claims are made. The software can notify you of errors or completed claims or even denials.
Data & Financial Planning
Behavioral health billing software is going to give you more tools to measure how many tasks you complete and how fast those tasks are completed. This can help you increase your ROI and pinpoint areas that are disrupting your revenue cycle. Having this data can be crucial when determining when to hire more staff or pinpoint problems and your administrative policies.
Multiple Payment Options
While it may seem like a no-brainer, medical billing software gives patients the ability to pay in multiple ways. Some software will allow you to pay by a card or by cash, while others will allow patients to pay by text. The software gives your practice the tools to take payment in however ways that customers enjoy.
Pricing for Behavioral Health Billing Software
There are two types of ways to pay for behavioral health billing software. These two are as follows:
Hosted Software: This is software that you host on your own internal servers. This can be expensive and requires the IT personnel and tools to host the software.
Cloud-Based Software: This is software that is hosted remotely on servers and practices log-in to use the software. This is usually a cheaper option and provides ease of access for practices to get started using the software.
For our purposes, we are going to focus on cloud-based software. For pricing you can expect these tiers:
| Basic tier pricing (Base Price) | Higher tier pricing (Base Price) |
| $30-$100 per user per month | $200-$500 per user per month |
If you’d like to learn more about pricing check out our other articles here:
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