10 Reasons You Should Augment Your NextGen Billing Staff

Keeping your accounts receivable as low as possible is of utmost priority in any company, making the revenue cycle department crucial. The billing staff is responsible for duties such as coding office visits, creating claims, posting and following up on payments, and sending statements. Ideally, this department should run smoothly without any glitches. However, due to staff attrition, extensive workloads, and human error, a busy medical office can end up with a considerable backlog of mistakes such as unbilled claims, unposted payments, and credit balances. When reaching this point, some practices may consider outsourcing their revenue cycle management (RCM). What if there was a better way? What if you could temporarily augment your billing staff to relieve the pressures of the accrued backlog? With TempBill's NextGen billing staff augmentation services, you can take your NextGen RCM to the next level.

Staff augmentation allows a company to outsource specific staff following an evaluation and identification of skill gaps, in this case, the billing staff. However, if done poorly, staff augmentation can be more detrimental than beneficial. For example:

• Loss of trust from existing staff

• Risk of higher costs

• Loss of innovation

TempBill serves to address all these concerns through the unique ways that we handle your billing staff augmentation. Here are ten reasons why you should augment your NextGen billing staff with us.

1. Don't outsource your NextGen billing, co-source!

At TempDev, we advise our clients not to outsource their revenue cycle management but to co-source with us. This model allows your billing team to partner with us and develop a solution uniquely designed for your practice. A well-known benefit for staff augmentation is that the client can acquire the right expertise for specific projects that they might not be able to hire for.

2. Keep your existing NextGen billing staff

Your loyal billing team has been trusted to handle your revenue cycle for many years, letting them go can be a very difficult decision that doesn't need to be made. The fear and worry of being replaced by an outsourced team can be crippling and cause loss of trust that will reverberate throughout your entire office. With our co-sourced model, we guarantee that you will get experienced billers who get the job done and teach your existing billing staff new tricks and tools to improve their skill set.

3. Flat rate pricing, not a percentage

The typical outsourced RCM model requires a percentage of your collections, including cash. Most practices are uncomfortable paying a percentage of their services but because it's the only model available, they end up agreeing to it. At TempDev, we are conscious of these risks and have carefully engineered TempBill's flat-rate model to address cost concerns. This gives you an exact amount of your cost, allowing us to provide the services with any billing functions you require and eliminate the fear of what percent you'll be paying.

4. No additional NextGen billing training

Training new billing staff on NextGen costs both time and money, and with a tight budget and aggressive timelines, this may not be an option. Our billers are extensively trained to use NextGen billing software and are available to start working at a moment's notice. We meet with you to define the SOP for your tasks, train our billers, and get started. 

5. Cost beneficial

Hiring full-time billers for temporary projects can cost significantly more due to expenses such as monthly salaries and benefits such as health insurance. NextGen billing staff augmentation with TempBill allows you to hire highly qualified and trained experts for the project's duration.

6. Seamless integration

Many billing offices may be hesitant to share their workload with outsiders. However, we have found that when we are collaborative partners, that staff is open to integrating with us because there's no threat to their jobs. A common fear during staff augmentation is that introducing new personnel may interrupt existing work patterns and practices. Our model of co-sourcing allows us seamless integration into any practice without disrupting regular running.

7. Access to numerous NextGen EPM reports

Additionally, partnering with TempBill allows you access to some of TempDev's innovative NextGen billing reports. TempDev will run a NextGen practice management assessment report to understand your current state and to help discover where the issues are. With this valuable insight, you'll be able to understand the impact TempBill can have on your revenue cycle.

8. Clear your backlog of unposted charges & payments

Understandably, complications during charge and payment posting may arise due to understaffing, poor configuration, or user errors. TempDev's NextGen EPM consultants will work with you on optimizing your NextGen configuration. TempBill's billers can assist in solving your understaffing issues and fixing user errors. We will partner with your billing team to clean your backlog of charges, claims, and payments and get your AR back on track.

9. Implementing NextGen denial management

Denial management is an essential component of financial health for any practice however many people overlook it because they're too busy in the day to day revenue cycle operations. They often overlook the fact that if you effectively manage your denials, you can improve the time and effort it takes to get paid. TempBill can help you manage denials by analyzing, prioritizing, and putting in the configuration needed to stop them before the claim ever gets out the door.

10. Work NextGen credit balances and issues

Medical offices can have NextGen credit balances for varying reasons including billing mistakes or refunds needing to be processed. It's important to stay on top of credit balances for legal compliance and patient experience. Refunds must be processed within a reasonable amount of time for legal compliance and patient satisfaction. Credit balances from user error and misconfiguration must be managed to accurately book revenue. Unfortunately, managing credit balances are often low priority and revenue cycle teams never work them. With TempBill, we partner with you to define the SOP for credit balances and start managing them and escalating where appropriate.

NextGen billing staff augmentation through TempDev will save you time, costs incurred on training and hiring full-time employees, and take away the discomfort that comes with letting an employee go once the project is over. Contact us today at 888.TEMP.DEV to discuss your next billing project.