AI and Medical Coding: The Future of Medical Billing
The medical coding and billing industry is prone to time-consuming manual processes, a high risk of human error, and a lack of scalability and efficiency.
In traditional medical billing and coding, healthcare providers input data. With more than 70,000 codes today, it becomes difficult for coders to process charts with the speed that the healthcare system demands.
This causes errors and makes the entire process inefficient. These errors further lead to the denial of claims and the inability to manage the ever-increasing workload.
However, Artificial intelligence (AI) technology holds the potential to transform medical billing.
How AI-powered Medical Billing Works
The technology behind AI solutions for medical billing involves the integration of Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). AI-powered medical billing integrates with the existing billing process, reducing the need for manual input and making the billing process faster and more accurate.
The Future of AI in Medical Billing
Medical billing and coding are the two areas embracing AI intervention. In the foreseeable future, AI is expected to become a partner to medical coders and billers in the:
- Streamlining the medical coding process: Medical coders struggle to assign accurate codes. AI tools like MediCodio are helping coders’ process charts within timelines, reducing spillovers, and providing superbills to medical billers on time. This contributes to process efficiency.
- Reduced errors leading to reduced denials: Wrong codes are responsible for the largest claim denials by payers. This causes huge financial losses to the healthcare provider. AI reads charts and suggests the exact codes that lead to complete reimbursement and minimized losses.
- Reduce fraudulent billing: With the increased workload on coders and billers, cases of fraudulent billing are rising. AI can be used to analyze claims data and identify patterns of fraudulent activity, thereby saving millions of dollars.
- Automating the billing process: With further innovations, AI can also be used to automate the billing process, meaning the AI-powered billing software can automatically generate and send bills to patients and insurance companies.
- Reducing OpEx: Running a medical coding and billing department means huge operating expenses w.r.t. infrastructure and training teams on the ever-changing codes and process. AI enables you to do more without increasing workforce and infrastructure requirements.
As AI continues to evolve and improve, healthcare providers need to keep up with the latest developments and rightfully implement this technology to improve medical billing for their patients. With sustainable capacity building to integrate AI in health care, physicians can now focus more on innovations and complex treatments while AI will be acting as a second brain for them.
About MediCodio:
Medicodio is an AI-powered coding tool that reduces medical coding costs and improves efficiency by up to 45%. A great fit for RCM companies and hospital billing departments, CODIO suggests medical codes (CPT, ICD10, HCPCS, modifiers) by reading patient demographic info from EHR systems and Physician Notes/Chart. After the medical coder makes a selection from the list of suggested codes, CODIO sends your codes to the billing system.
Resources:
https://rightmedicalbilling.com/
Jessica Miller
An experienced healthcare executive and certified medical coder with over 15 years working in Ambulatory Surgery Centre billing and coding.
