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radiology practices and images of the face many threats to their profitability. Radiology billing is becoming more complex, and compensation is constantly decreasing. There are three key challenges you'll need to understand and address your radiology business to grow in coming years.
future is less.
Connecting service and codes have resulted in lower (and in many cases significantly lower), fees for services. Some codes are revised RVUs carry lower, reflecting the belief that those services were previously "misvalued" (overpriced ).
Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) recently recommended measures to further trimming benefits, including lowering the threshold for connecting an overview of 75% to as low as 50%, reducing the professional component payments for multiple procedures and surveys conducted by straneisti doctor in the same session, a discount for paying providers that are red and read the images.
Some "thought leaders" (see the Radiology Business Journal June / July 2011) considered that part of the professional fees are likely to cut another 30% over the next five years.
The complexity increases.
Upcoming new coding procedure will affect the clinical and business operations. New requirements will further affect the compliance procedures in radiology billing. And then there is a move toward more electronic data standards and requirements.
The ICD-10, none is easily refined and updated i. The new rules will be more, and there will be a lot more of them. RVUs will be different, too. Since you will not see a lot of correspondence between the ICD-9 and ICD-10, your staff will have to figure out exactly how to "translate" the new world.
Of course, we can count on the government to "correct" prices, discover new opportunities for bonding and removing excess processes. You'll also see more emphasis on connecting the radiology billing and expense from the measurement results, expanding on the initiatives, such as PQRS (PQRI was ).
change is the new normal.
your in-house costs are going up.
daily operations costs will keep growing, and includes new requirements of radiology, billing will be added to the cost pressures on its financial situation.
coding and billing staff will have to learn a new comprehensive quickly. Even after the October 2013 deadline for heat, the service will have to continue treatment of ICD-9 codes for services provided before the deadline. Because payors will have an extended deadline, May you face additional "dual" question processing. This will create more work for their staff, and possibly unintended consequences of a fee, too.
A new, more involved way to link financial data to compensate will require more sophisticated technology and better trained staff. Failure to accurately document patient data, including details of benefits, it could result in increased denials and even fines.
Annual planning and budgeting can be difficult, because the ICD-10 fails to publish the changes until October, giving you less than three months to prepare for the next fiscal year.
You radiology billing challenges means more attention to the ever-changing coding and requirements. And you'll manage the business side of practice or center wisely and effectively to stay competitive and thrive.
