Back office support has never been more critical. Providing patients with products and services takes time and effort, including getting it paid for by their insurance company.
This is a common scenario: a patient calls a company to order CPAP supplies for their Sleep Apnea CPAP machine. Seems pretty straightforward – the company can just ship the product and bill the insurance company, right? Not exactly. This process actually takes many steps. First, the company has to contact the patient’s physician to ensure the patient has had a sleep study and has a prescription for the CPAP machine. Then, the company has to verify that the patient’s insurance will cover the machine. This requires either a potentially lengthy telephone call or going online to find the coverage information. Finally, the company has to get pre-authorization from the insurance company confirming they will pay for the CPAP supplies.
Still doesn’t seem like too much of an undertaking, does it? How about once you realize that every insurance company, and sometimes every policy type within that insurance company has its own phone number to call and Web site to navigate? And that every company has their own special pre-authorization form that needs to be completed and faxed to a specific number? Now we are talking about some serious time spent on a single patient. If, for some reason, your online due diligence isn’t enough, you’ll need to call the insurance company, which many mean waiting on hold for 45 minutes (or longer) before a customer service rep is able to help. That’s right – nearly an hour to get an answer.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Streamlining the process is key to making it more efficient.
At some point, insurance carriers may get on board with conforming to specific processes and forms. Until then, the best bet is work with a company that specializes in automated back office support – a company that knows who to call, which Web sites to go to, and which forms to fill out. Based on the insurance company and policy type, this type of back office support service can automatically call, form fill and fax the insurance company without needing manual intervention. Plus, they can automate the workflow: while agents are on hold for the insurance company, they can be working other online orders accessible through a portal, so they are working more than one patient record at a time. This translates to a huge uptick in productivity.
Working with companies that have expertise in back office support can help tremendously with accuracy and efficiency. Here’s why:
· The agents who do this work all day, every day, master it.
· Calls dialed automatically by the dialer and delivered to the agent is more efficient.
· Systematic faxing without manual intervention saves a ton of time.
· Allowing agents to work on multiple orders simultaneously doubles productivity.
· Orders are accounted for – nothing gets lost in the queue since the orders are handled systematically. Orders get worked until they are resolved, increasing a company’s ability to ship more products.
Doing all of this work manually is time-consuming and inefficient. It’s a huge burden for pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, and medical equipment and supply companies. It may even contribute to our high health care costs, and make it difficult for patients to get the products and services they desperately need to maintain their health and improve their quality of life.
For more information about how you can outsource your Back Office Support, please visit: http://healthybos.com/