Selecting Medical Billing Services Using Smart Reference Checks

Insuring that you utilize a systematic and well designed process for reference checking will dramatically improve your success in selecting a medical billing services company. Using an interview guide is a key element of successful reference checking.

Once you have decided that it is time to outsource medical billing there are many important steps to insure that the medical insurance billing services company you select is the right one for you. A key step of the process is checking references. As with the overall selection process, there are many important elements that need to be addressed to insure that your reference check is effective in verifying the attractiveness (or lack thereof) of your potential medical insurance billing company.

Proper reference checking requires selecting the parameters that make a reference interesting (i.e., do they have to be in your zip code, be the same size), insuring that you speak to at least one ex-client, deciding what type of individual at a client you want to speak with, writing an interview guide, making reference calls, writing up the summary of your findings and determining what the take away is form the reference calls. Today's article is primarily about creating the interview guide.

Your interview guide will allow you and not the references to determine what topics are addressed in the reference calls. If you do not drive the calls, you may well end the process still unsure about your final decision. To kick-off the interview guide creation think about the worst things and the best things that could happen as a result of medical billing outsourcing. Keeping your mind on these best and worst cases develop questions that will help you determine where between these two extremes your potential medical billing company operates.

Narrow questions are typically much better than broad questions for reference checks. Broad questions such as "Did you billing improve after you outsourced?" will not give you specific enough data to make an informed decision when your reference checks are completed.

Given this issue, your next task is to make the question more geared towards gathering objective facts. For instance, you might change the question above to say, ?How many hours per week did you spend before outsourcing on reviewing billing performance reports, reviewing EOBs, and reconciling your bank deposits with your billing system reports? How many hours per week do you spend on this now??

With your list of questions completed you need to put them in an easy to use form. The best approach is to print them out with about four questions spaced out on a page. This allows you to easily write the answers nest to the questions. Do not make any calls until you do a final read through of your questions and ask yourself, "will I have what I need to make a final decision if I get these answers?" If the answer is "yes", then pick up the phone and start dialing.

It is your job to make sure you get specific answers to all of all your questions. Think of yourself as a reporter and do not let the call end until you have all of your questions specifically answered. You will need to practice good time management to make sure this happens in the period the person is allowing for the reference call. If you do not get all of your questions answered, then ask to schedule a second call.

Do not hesitate to call back your earlier references if one of the later ones brings up an important potential benefit or concern that you had not considered. You want to insure you hear what all of the references have to say about this new point.

Following the process outlined above will insure that you gather the factual information required to make an informed decision about your medical billing service.

Copyright 2008 by Medical Billing Services Buying Guide.

Article Source: http://www.articlegoldmine.com

Brad Firth is a Researcher with Medical Insurance Billing Services Buying Guide. He discusses the medical billing industry and medical billing services selection at the Medical Billing Blog

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