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.
Although today's write-up is geared towards creating an effective interview guide, this is far from the only ingredient of a successful medical billing services company selection. Other critical ingredients include outlining the minimum requirements of an acceptable reference (e.g., does it need to be in your state, what specialties are acceptable, etc), deciding if you want to speak with a former client, outlining the roles of the people with whom your wish to speak (e.g., lead partner, practice administrator, day-to-day billing contact, etc), creating the interview guide, call the references, and making the final go/no-go decision.
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.
It is critical to ensure that your questions are specific enough that you can come away with real facts from the reference calls. You do not want to ask broad questions like "Are you happy with this company's performance?" Such questions are open to much interpretation and are driven by the individual's previous experiences.
To insure you have the information you need at the end of the interview process use narrow questions such as "What were you days in AR before you outsourced and how did they change 3 months after you outsourced?" This gives you specific and actionable data.
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.
When you make the call make sure to confirm how long you have to speak with the individual and pace your call accordingly. You want to make sure you get through each of your questions with each of the references. If someone starts to linger too long on a single question or takes the call off on a tangent, make sure to get them back on track by letting them know you have a list of question you want to make sure you get covered during the call. End the call by thanking the person and asking for permission to call back if you have any additional questions.
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.
If you follow these guidelines you will conduct a set of references that will give you the information you need to be confident in your medical billing company selection.
Copyright 2008 by Medical Billing Services Buying Guide.
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To learn more about this topic goto Medical Insurance Billing Services Buying Guide. You'll learn more about medical billing companies at Brad Ferth's Medical Billing Blog
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