How Obstetrics Billing Services Can Reduce Healthcare Burnout

Healthcare workers, especially doctors and nurses, often feel tired and stressed. This feeling is called burnout. According to a study by the American Medical Association (AMA), 48.2% of physicians reported feeling burned out at least once a week. That’s around half of all doctors.

For obstetricians, who handle pregnancies and deliveries, the stress can be even higher. Moreover, according to Medscape, 42% of doctors reported that their patient level decreased due to burnout. That is where the need for billing services comes into the picture. They can take care of all the billing-related tasks so that the doctors can focus on patient care. So, let’s know the burden the obstetrics billing services solve to understand why you need the third-party billing service.

The burden of billing in Obstetrics

Obstetrics is a special field. It involves prenatal care, deliveries, and postpartum visits. Each of these steps requires an accurate billing process to get paid by the insurance companies. But billing isn’t easy. It’s full of codes, rules and deadlines. For example, a simple prenatal visit might use the CPT code 59400. But, in case of any complications during the visit, this code changes.

According to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), 60% of healthcare providers reported an increase in claim denial rates. But that's not all. When the claims are denied, obstetrics billing services come into the picture. They have to invest approximately 14 minutes per claim to fix them. So, for example, if the obstetric physician sees 20 patients a day and half the claims need fixing, that is two hours of extra work. So, the doctors do not get any “pajama time”, which reduces healthcare efficiency.

Here, third-party billing services can come to your rescue. So, let’s know what those services are so that you can understand how they can help you.

What are Obstetrics Billing Services?

These services are companies or experts who take care of all your billing processes. They know all the codes, rules, and tricks to streamline the billing process. Moreover, they understand the billing process for ultrasounds, C-sections, or high-risk pregnancies. Apart from that, they also have in-depth knowledge of the common rejection reasons in billing such as duplicate claims, eligibility issues, invalid NPI, payer ID errors, and code issues. Now, let’s know the process they follow to reduce billing inaccuracies.

How Billing Services Reduce Burnout?

• Less time for paperwork: Doctors hates paperwork. These consume most of their time, especially the billing process. Here, the third-party billing services comply with all the billing regulations to streamline this process. Moreover, they also carefully adhere to the CPT and ICD codes to ensure a perfect billing process.
• Cost-saving: The in-house billing team consumes a large amount of cost. Moreover, you need to train them about the updated regulations, which will also increase your healthcare costs. On the other hand, billing companies have experts who know all the complex nuances of the billing process. That is how they help the providers to save their healthcare costs.
• Helping with Prior authorization: Do you know why prior authorization is a complex process? Every insurance company has its own rules which makes this more difficult. According to an AMA survey, 94% of doctors stated that prior authorization delays access to necessary care. For example, one might need a form to be filled out, others may want a phone call or extra medical records. That is where the obstetrics billing services know all the complex nuances of prior authorization. Hence, with their help, the providers can see a decrease in claim denial rate and an increase in healthcare efficiency.
• Having better work-life balance: A study by AMA stated that 36% of doctors work 40+ hours per week. This is because they have to take care of the billing issues and also their patients. That is where the billing services provide dedicated resources that focus on solving only your billing issues. Hence, it helps the doctors to have a better work-life balance.

Why Obstetrics Need This Service More

Obstetrics is extremely difficult because deliveries can happen late at night or any other time. Moreover, the high-risk cases need constant attention. Now, when you have all these challenges, billing adds to this mess. That is when you need an outsourced billing service. These services are designed to understand your clinic’s unique needs, like billing for twins or emergency C-sections.

*Final Thoughts *
Healthcare burnout is real, but it can be solved. Remember that there are several challenges of obstetrics billing such as compliance with the updated regulations, manual billing process, and many more which leads to claim denials. So, what can you do in that case?

You can hire obstetrics billing services who know all the complex CPT and ICD codes to streamline the claim submission process. Moreover, they also provide dedicated resources who only take care of your billing process. Furthermore, they can also reduce all billing errors quickly using technology. Hence, you can invest your time in patient care.