OB/GYN billing is a highly confusing and complicated forms of medical billing. Usually, OB/GYN billers undergo a tough medical billing process when the patient switches to another physician during the pregnancy. The multiple complications or complaints associated with pregnant women and postpartum conditions make the complete process quite challenging.
Here are 5 best practices of OB/GYN billing and coding to ensure increased revenues and guaranteed reimbursements. 
1. Maintaining Electronic Health Records
By storing the complete information about the health of the patients in digital format, preferably online, you can make accessing the data easier, simplify patient care and enhance patient engagement. Efficient EHR software offered from a reliable medical billing software company can prove to be a huge help in creating a meaningful and accessible pool of data that enhances the productivity and care. Opting for a totally web-based EHR solution is a great choice, ensuring an easy availability of the records when needed.
2. Implementing Credentialing Protocols
Giving proper credentialing is an essential aspect of getting the right reimbursement of money. It lets you stay in touch with the progress of the submissions and view the details for everything all in one place. There are several OB/GYN billing consultants that allow the clients to get an individual and personal analysis according to their mode of operation. Usually, recommendations are offered for them to improve the business in all aspects, thereby making them even more precise and efficient.
3. Collecting Co-Payments at the Time of Service
Prior to the patient visiting the doctor, the staff needs communicate with patients and audit their information at the time of registration. Collect the co-pay then, abstain from re-touching the documents of the patient, and try for a quick departure. This brings higher collections and it is advised to figure out how to redesign staff and strategies to get it going. Work towards collecting about 95% of co-pays in advance; real collections are generally more like 90%. You can request staff to keep an outline that shows when they don’t collect, along with the reasons.
4. Staying Updated with New Processes
Stay informed about the new updates introduced by the American Medical Association to guarantee that they can expand reimbursement and the claims will be pointlessly denied. AMA has introduced 335 amendments to the Terminology last year, including a few code increments. Changes have been made into the codes for vaginal and laparoscopic-assisted hysterectomy, analysis of chromosomes, genomic sequencing, human papillomavirus risks, human papillomavirus types, vaccination codes and several others. The coding changes may be influencing the payments.
5. Verifying the Patient’s Insurances
It’s very important to verify the insurance of the patients. Call payers to verify coverage or you can opt for online confirmation. If you can’t check the insurance status for every patient, try to confirm it for patients getting services that are priced more than your service, for example, attendant visits, vaccinations, or lab tests. On the off chance that you discover that the patient is not covered, get in touch with him or her prior to the appointment date and give let them choose whether to make the visit and pay for it themselves or get back to make another appointment when things have been rectified.
Do you have any exceptional OB/GYN billing and coding tips to share? Let us know in the comments below.
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