subject: 7 Top Uses For Excel In A Home Medical Claims Billing Business [print this page] Medical Claims Billing is a fiercely competitive arena on the corporate level, but there's lots of room for local mom-and-pop medical claims billing businesses in almost any metropolitan area. There are few businesses that need Microsoft Excel more than a home-based medical claims billing business. Here's why:
You'll Be Filing Claims
One of the most common activities for a medical claims billing agent is to file various insurance claims to the giant health organizations. Several of those organizations use software that takes advantage of Excel templates; if you understand how to use Excel, you can take advantage of those templates in a much more sophisticated and detailed way.
Mail Merge Will Be Your Friend
By taking those patient claims you've entered and setting up a Mail Merge between Excel and Word, you can easily create and send out statements of account to the patients as the first step in the collections effort.
Follow-Up is Crucial
Whether you're following up on a particular claim, appeal, or simply a delinquent payment, medical claims billing is all about knowing when you need to follow up on what. With Excel's Email Alert function, you can have your own customer database tell you when to check on each client's case.
Collections Can Be Tricky
Part of claims billing is conducting collections efforts on your clients. By recording your attempts (and their responses) in your database, you can learn patterns of behavior that will increase the efficacy of your collections system.
No Clients, No Money
Similarly, marketing efforts can vary remarkably in their results-per-dollar. Track your marketing efforts in Excel, and you'll see instantly what was most profitable so you can repeat that thing more often.
Code Cracking
There are hundreds of medical codes, insurance codes, and other specialized sets of letters and numbers that medical claims billing makes use of. A one-time effort putting all of the relevant codes into Excel will produce a searchable database that can tell you everything you need to know about an unfamiliar code.
Never Miss a Step
By creating a simple Excel template with some pull-down menus, you can essentially create a flowchart of each client's process -- one that modifies itself based on things like which companies you need to communicate with, how long it's been since the last payment, and other options. It's a while to set up, but once made, it's the strongest tool towards success a claims billing business can have.
Excel is the tool that makes it possible for a two-person medical claims billing business to exist, much less be functional. If you're not an expert in Excel already, get the knowledge you need, and get your business off the ground for good.
by: Jen Morrison
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
