This is post 8 of a 10 post series on the top 10 reasons you should consider outsourcing your coding.

New Orleans is 5 feet below sea level. Which would be fine if it was in the middle of the country and not right on the water. The reason this city has realized so much success despite its hostile location is the levee system installed to prevent flooding.

In order for New Orleans to thrive it needs those levies to work and keep the swamp separate from the city streets. For health care facilities to thrive, charts must be coded and sent for billing as soon as possible. If the charts go un-billed, due to incompletion or denied claims this adds to the accounts receivable time. Increased A/R is similar to adding water against the levee system. If it gets out of control, like what happened with Katrina, it will break causing devastation. When Medical Coders work overflows havoc ensues through backlogs, reduced cash flow, decreased productivity and a hurricane of potential problems.

Denied claims become one of the highest priority's within the accounting department if accounts receivables time increases. When your CFO comes into your office and shows you the recently pulled aged report, the majority of the time the culprit will be denied claims and the ever growing backlog problem. 

Medical Coders are typically built for a calm protected bay, not hurricane Katrina. When things happen that are out of the ordinary, it requires extra time, extra expertise, and usually neither can be found internally. The key component of reducing AR time is to eliminate denials. The key to eliminating denials is to work with an outsourced medical coding company that has medical coders who can dedicate the extra time, and who have the extra expertise. 

A highly professional outsourced medical coding company's denial management process should have two components. 

1. A Highly effective workflow management tool. This ensures your clinical documentation is on point, and moved through the coding process as efficient as possible. 

2. Certified professional medical coders. Coders expertise varies greatly depending on who you choose to trust your companies coding to. Its paramount to partner strictly with certified and experienced coders who can weather the storms that inevitably will occur at some time or another.

Outsourcing your Denial Management to medical coding companies that have a focus on those two areas will increase your income, reduce lost reimbursement and maximize your ability to collect unpaid claims.