Behavioral Health Billing Company
The financial health of your agency is directly related to effective and timely billing. Hiring a quality Behavioral Health billing company is one of the most important decisions you can make to improve and sustain the agency.
Behavioral Health specialists serve clients of many ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Because the wide variety of Behavioral Health services is often provided across several facilities (e.g. inpatient, outpatient, substance abuse clinic, etc.), billing for Behavioral Health professionals is unique and complex.
As a result, agencies are advised to choose a Behavioral Health billing company based on its experience, technology and staff capabilities and fit.
Behavioral Health billing experience
Experience comes in several forms. Many billing companies are founded and run by an individual who previously billed for an agency. Others have grown over time and are now run by a team of Behavioral Health billing experts. A small agency or solo provider may find a good fit with the individual-based company while mid-size and larger agencies generally prefer a billing company with more depth.
Behavioral Health billing Technology
Technology capabilities are often overlooked or given too little weight. The visible components include scheduling and registration. Often overlooked are eligibility and billing capabilities. A professional billing company can illustrate how it has customized workflows to achieve strong collections results. Some larger billing companies are technology based, which should provide them with advantages in flexibility and billing performance.
Behavioral Health billing staff
Of course, each billing company requires experienced Behavioral Health billers. The staff should be large enough to cover any attrition, vacations, illnesses, etc. within each important functional area: i.e. claims processing, payment posting, denial management, A/R management, enrollment, etc. And it should be clear how their account management process works: will you have a dedicated representative assigned to your account or not? What experience does that person have?
Is this billing company right for our agency?
Judging the fit with a potential billing company requires assessing each of the criteria above, then adding the intangibles: do they seem to understand my agency and my unique needs? Are they willing to partner in a way that feels comfortable? Do they have enough resources to meet my needs? Does the billing company successfully serve agencies of our size and complexity? Will I be “small fish in a big pond”?
Behavioral Health billing company pricing
Most billing companies charge for their services as a percentage of net collections. This has the advantage of being a variable cost that is easily predicted in agency budgeting. However, there is a large variance between billing companies in their effectiveness, as measured by the net collections percentage. Agencies are advised to compare billing company effectiveness with more scrutiny than the pricing. While one company may charge 1 or even 2% more, their net collections may be 3, 5 or even 10 points better, more than offsetting the fee difference.
