How Many Billers Should A Medical Practice Employ?

We’ve talked about in-house billing vs outside billing before. I even teamed up with my friend Chip Hart and devoted a full podcast to the topic. But we’ve never talked about billing staff ratios. How many billing staff should we have? How do we know if we are understaffed or overstaff? Should we calculate the ratio based on charges and collections or should we base it on physician count? Dr. Suzanne Berman, one of the many outstanding contributors to the SOAPM list serve and an avid supporter of the Survivor Pediatrics Blogs, jumped in to the discussion with excellent insight on how she staffs her office. Here is what she had to say. One full-time biller could probably do 65% of our 5-provider practice. This would essentially involve simple in-and-out: convert all the superbills to claims, send ‘em out, then post whatever she gets back, and send a bunch of statements, then deposit whatever we get. A colleague of mine (who probably thinks I’m overstaffed) does just this very thing with a single part-time biller. This physician is happy to collect 65% of his claims with hardly any effort and write off the rest — which also gives him hardly any days in AR (“oops, they didn’t pay for imms with an EPSDT? OK, I guess we’re writing that off. Next claim!”) 65% is the easy low-hanging fruit. Another FTE might do another 20% — but it’s the next hardest 20% (appeals, corrected claims, etc.) which require more skill. Another ...
Source: Pediatric Inc - Category: Pediatricians Authors: Tags: Pediatrics Billing Pediatric Practice Management VideoCast Health Care Business Patient Source Type: blogs