Medical Billing companies FTE outsourcing tips
Are you a medical billing company that is looking for innovative ways to attract and retain clients? The arithmetic of the healthcare world is fraught with uncertainties, close federal scrutiny, and complex regulations. Your healthcare professional is no ordinary customer who makes impulse purchases at the cashier till.
To tailor services according to the clients’ needs is the oldest trick in the marketer book. And it still works like magic. Most medical billing companies are providing varied service offerings and pricing options. In fact, I’d written about it recently.
The most common pricing models are:
Full cycle revenue cycle management: The healthcare organization externalizes its entire revenue cycle operations to a medical billing company. According to a survey by BlackBook, 80% of hospital leaders were planning to outsource their entire revenue cycle functions in 2019.
Co-managed RCM: Co-managed revenue cycle management works for most healthcare organizations. The billing company and in-house medical billing department join hands to improve workflow efficiencies and collection percentage.
But do you know what the most sought after and successful revenue cycle model is? It is the FTE (full time equivalent) model. Medical billing outsourcing is supposed to hit a crest in the coming months. Make the most out of it by offering just what your clients want. Full time equivalent (FTE) resources who work closely with your clients.
A quick rundown of how the model works
Here is how things work at BillingParadise. Our client service manager drives down to the healthcare organization to meet the client and work out modalities. Thorough revenue cycle and workflow analysis are performed and a clear-cut roadmap and go-forward strategy are chalked out.
Once our FTEs go onboard we assign an account manager to manage the FTEs and drive up productivity. We also promise quick replacement of FTEs if need be.
You can follow this formula as well to attract new clients.
Here’s your elevator pitch to convince healthcare organizations to hire your FTEs
Saves on costs: Healthcare organizations can save up on costs by hiring just the resources they need to improve revenue. Instead of hiring entire teams or conversely working with a skeletal team who are overworked, the FTE model presents your clients with the option of hiring resources who can boost existing processes or offer interim support.
Saves time: When you urgently want to communicate about rejected claims the last thing you want to hear is lounge music over the phone. Don’t make your clients go down that rabbit hole, ever. The FTE model helps clients to communicate effortlessly with a specific set of resources who are deployed exclusively for them. This saves truckloads of time spent on long email threads, back and forth and communication hassles.
Dedicated resources: A dedicated team of healthcare billing professionals is sure to foster a connect with your client than an entire company. This personalization will prevent switchovers and miscommunication. Many clients also leverage FTEs to handle specialized workflows like prior authorization services, ensuring approvals are obtained faster and clean claims are submitted on time.
Easy to get reports: By working with a small team your clients can easily track productivity metrics, get on-demand work reports and keep tabs on the progress of their revenue cycle operations. Instead of confusing excel sheets sent periodically they will just have to view daily work reports of “their” team and this makes revenue cycle reporting and tracking as easy as 123.
FTE pricing - Now, this is where the plot gets thicker
The FTE pricing model is pretty simple. In fact, it is almost a no-brainer. You charge by the hour or the more common monthly FTE fee. It is a simple formula that is as old as the hills. 8 hours a day x 5 days a week x 52 weeks a year. Calculate your yearly FTE. Divide the total hours by 173.33 and arrive at a monthly fee.
But the wait is there anything missing in this seemingly straightforward formula. Yes, there is. Look again. Have you failed to factor in a vital component? What about your in-house manager/team lead who manages the account?
They usually fall in the unbillable category. Most healthcare organizations will pay for just the FTEs they hire. And you cannot blame them because the healthcare industry is under tremendous pressure to reduce their cost base. This is how you can navigate this tricky situation.
- Strategy 1: Explain to your client about the need for paying or manager as they’d be overseeing the entire operations. Most times they will agree and pay accordingly.
- Strategy 2: Pay your manager extra for handling the hired FTEs and overseeing operations. You can consider a modest hike.
- Strategy 3: This isn’t cheating. You cannot pay from your wallet every time FTEs are hired. Hike the price of each resource slightly and pay a percentage of it to your manager. Ensure everybody who is working on the account in your billing office is clued-in.
Here is how your clients can benefit from the FTE model:
- They hire limited resources and save up on dollars
- They have a dedicated team who work in tandem with their in-house team so there are no transition headaches.
- Your clients can retain their experienced/favorite billers and coders so there is no ethical dilemma involved in outsourcing their revenue cycle
- They can hire industry experts at the fraction of the cost of hiring full-time employees.
Conclusion:
What are you waiting for? Start pitching the FTE model and gain more clients. And follow the age-old mantra of marketers “the customer is king”. What particular service model is the most popular at your billing company? It’d be great to know.
Frequently Asked Questions
FTE billing streamlines the process by optimizing staffing and resources, reducing claim denials, and improving billing efficiency. This ultimately leads to faster payments and better cash flow for your practice.
FTE stands for Full-Time Equivalent, and it measures an employee's workload. In medical billing, it helps practices figure out how many staff members they need and the costs of outsourcing billing tasks.
FTE outsourcing can save costs, provide specialized expertise, and boost efficiency in billing. This lets your practice focus more on patient care while ensuring billing is managed professionally.
