As an ABA practitioner, you are responsible for several aspects of your practice. With so much going on, your ability to deliver quality patient care may be compromised. One of these elements is ABA therapy billing. Thankfully, outsourcing to third-party providers is an option for ABA therapy providers and other medical billers.
However, choosing a medical billing service provider to assist with your ABA therapy practice billing can be challenging. Here are some questions to ask before deciding whether a particular medical billing provider is the right company for you.
1. Does the billing company specialize in ABA therapy billing?
Before you outsource to medical billing companies, it’s important to choose a specialist company with the expertise to handle ABA therapy billing correctly. ABA therapy billing requires extensive knowledge of ABA therapy billing codes to ensure billing is correctly processed, especially since these codes are frequently changed or updated. This is why it’s essential to shortlist companies that specifically offer ABA therapy billing services.
2. Do they have good reviews and references?
Once you’ve identified a list of potential candidates, it’s important to look into their reviews and references. Reviews and references are vital in establishing whether you can trust a company to deliver what it promises. After all, a company may promise error-free and timely billing services, but could fail you when it comes time to get the work done.
By checking a potential service provider’s reviews and references, you can avoid hiring a company that lacks the skills and knowledge to do the work correctly. This means that you’ll also prevent potential loss of income and the extra cost of hiring another provider to deal with any potential issues.
3. How much experience does the company have?
In addition to reviews and references, you’re more likely to be able to trust a more experienced company to provide good quality billing services. After all, it’s doubtful they would have been able to continue outsourcing to ABA practices for an extended period if they were unable to process ABA therapy bills, while it’s much more likely that a newer company could make billing errors due to their lack of experience.
However, it’s also important to remember that this isn’t true for all billing providers without experience. This is also why the previously mentioned reviews and references are vital, as they can point you toward a good service provider that can deliver regardless of their experience.
4. Are they HIPAA compliant?
Another vital question is what steps the billing company takes to ensure they are HIPAA compliant. HIPAA exists to protect a patient’s health information by creating laws stating that private health information must be stored securely and protected when being disclosed. If your patient’s data were to be compromised, you could face civil or criminal penalties, depending on the nature of the leak.
5. What is their fee structure like?
Once you’ve further trimmed down your list of potential ABA therapy medical billing companies, you’ll need to investigate their fees. While overall cost-effectiveness is usually the primary concern when assessing the price of any service, it’s important to have a detailed understanding of what you’re getting charged for.
Ask whether you’ll be paying a flat rate or whether you’ll be paying an additional percentage of each bill to your service provider as well. Do their costs scale with your practice’s needs, or do they bill you regardless of how small or large your practice is? Investigating these details can help you avoid any unwelcome surprises when paying for a provider’s billing services.
6. What billing software do they use?
Even if you’ve just started your ABA therapy practice, chances are you’ve already purchased and set up various digital practice management tools and have spent time and money on training for your chosen platform, too. With this in mind, you’ll want to find a billing provider with a software platform that is compatible with yours. This can help you save a lot of time and money that would otherwise need to be spent on new software and training.
If you do consider a service provider that would require you to switch practice management or billing platforms, consider asking them if they provide free or paid training to help you get yourself and your staff up to speed.
7. How helpful is their customer support?
Even the best-run practices and billing providers will occasionally have issues. When these problems arise, you will need to engage with their customer support representatives.
There are a number of questions that will help you make your final decision when choosing a billing provider. Are their customer service staff well trained? Or do they rely on prompted scripts and can’t resolve issues outside of these service materials? What hours do they operate? If someone cannot assist you immediately, could they escalate your issue to someone who can?
Ultimately, having access to good customer support can help lower the stress of challenges and reduce the time it takes to resolve them when they arise.
Missing Piece: Your #1 ABA therapy billing and insurance service
With all these selection criteria in mind, practitioners looking for the top medical billing companies that can assist with ABA therapy billing should consider Missing Piece.
Missing Piece has more than 10 years of experience in ABA therapy billing, ensuring we can provide your practice with the skills and expertise it needs to run efficiently. Missing Piece can assist with your billing by providing you with access to payer and billing expertise and ensuring your reimbursement is completed on time, allowing you to focus on providing your patients with excellent patient care. Our service is also flexible and scalable, adjusting to the needs of your practice.
Contact us to learn more about how our ABA therapy billing company can assist you.