With the recent updates in who is eligible for a booster dose and with the expansion of the two dose COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to 5-11 year old children, there may be an increase in demand at your pharmacy. Pharmacists under the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program for COVID-19 Vaccination are allowed to administer and bill for vaccines. This can either be done for participating providers who can bill private and public insurance, or through HRSA for the uninsured and underinsured. It may be beneficial to consider outsourcing pharmacy billing to help lighten the workload during this busy time.
Patient Focus
When you outsource your billing, you are taking away a large administrative burden, especially when demand is high. Besides administering vaccines, there’s a range of responsibilities that pharmacists must carry out and a range of reasons that patients come to pharmacies. It can be difficult to juggle these on top of submitting and keeping track of claims.
Pharmacists may not always know which patients will come at which time and this can make it harder to set aside a time for submitting claims. This is challenging when claims are something that need to be submitted in a regular manner. Even with HRSA, although claims are all submitted to one location, it can still be difficult to bill regularly if your schedule may not be.
By reducing the time spent on billing and outsourcing that to another company, you can spend that time focused on patients in your community.
Reduced Expenses
Additionally, by outsourcing you can save on expenses and put the saved amount towards other part of your pharmacy such as inventory. By covering billing practices on your own, you not only need to locate the resources to do so, but also take charge of managing patient information, submitting claims, following up, etc.
If billing in-house, you may need to hire staff, install software, create an organized system and schedule for billing, not to mention the actual billing and claims follow-up work itself. A medical billing company can cover this altogether so there’s no need to hire and train more people or spend time and costs on keeping track of claims yourself.
Compliance
When billing HRSA claims, there are rules and regulations to follow, considering it is a government program. Even with private and public insurance, there are still different requirements. By outsourcing to a company who can bill these claims for you, you will not need to worry about this area. Billing companies should be kept up to date with the different requirements and can get your facility registered with HRSA to submit claims accordingly.
Reduce Errors
Likewise, because billing companies are experts in this field, error can be reduced. They know which codes to use, which forms to submit, how to bill, etc. and can help save time and costs. When errors occur, it takes time to identify the error and fix, but billing companies specialize in this and can help reduce or correct claims, so you don’t have to.
At Americare Network, we bill for HRSA related claims. This includes COVID-19 testing, vaccines, etc. anything that can be billed through HRSA for the uninsured or underinsured. We can help your pharmacy register with HRSA and manage the claims for reimbursement so you can focus on patient care. Let’s work together to help your patients. Contact us today for more information!
