We recently had a comment saying that medical professionals would soon have no choice of whether or not to bill electronically. With HIPAA and HITECH, the advantages of electronic billing for medical professionals seem overwhelming. We can't imagine why any medical office wouldn't choose to take advantage of the opportunity.
In fact, SmartPay's paperless invoicing system has so many advantages that we can't really see why any office would hesitate.
But we wanted to know for sure, so we went to an insurance claims analyst at a national insurance company.
"It is true," the analyst assured us, "that we encourage electronic claims for the simplicity and quick turn around, but we always accept paper claims."
We guessed that it was good to have choices, but we were wondering whether, given the simplicity and quick turn around, they might not plan to refuse paper claims at some point in the future.
"As a matter of fact," came the answer,"in the medical field it's unlikely that we could go paperless. There are a number of procedures which require diagnostics which, we all know, just don't fax that well. So until the NEA and digital xray systems are flawless, I'm sure that paper billing will remain as an acceptable option."
We had a little chat about dentistry, x-rays, and things like that. The idea of creating paper bills to go with records and then faxing them seemed so ... impractical. Apparently some offices still do this. We wondered why they hadn't switched to electronic record-keeping, especially considering the benefits in the stimulus package.
The claims analyst explained that some dentists worry about the safety of the information. Yes, of course, she said, the insurance company processes the bills electronically. And certainly, the banks process the funds electronically. But nonetheless, many offices that this analyst deals with haven't switched to digital transmission of information, and continue to rely on paper invoices.
As long as medical professionals continue to have concerns about the security of electronic records and invoicing, insurance companies may have to accept paper invoices, in spite of their recognition of the superiority of e-invoicing. Fortunately, there is growing awareness that electronic billing is actually more secure than paper billing.
Dr. C.A. Jenner claims that "The best way for medical professionals to increase efficiency, and
thus, to better serve patients, is to transition from a paper-based
office to one with an entirely electronic system." We agree.