Medical Practice Use Of Automated Claims Options Growing Slowly

A new study by a healthcare industry group has concluded that medical and dental practices are processing claims manually rather than going for full automation, a trend which is robbing the industry of very high levels of potential savings. While many physicians and dentists are using web portals to process claims, in most cases they haven’t reached the ”set it and forget it” level, a trend which could undercut possible savings.

The group, CAQH, tracks health plan and healthcare provider adoption of electronically-based administrative transactions for medical and dental practices. CAQH’s research estimates the time required for providers administrative transactions, including verifying a patient’s insurance coverage, sending and receiving payments, checking on the status of claims and handling prior authorization processes.

Its research concluded that despite the potential rewards, the medical and dental practices made only a modest level of progress in automating claims and related business processes over the past year. According to CAQH calculations, practices are still leaving roughly $11.1 billion in savings on the table, an estimate which has climbed by $1.8 billion over the prior year.

If these savings are realized, the majority ($9.5 billion) would end up in providers’ hands. However, many practices just haven’t gotten there yet.

A rise in portal use is certainly an improvement over paper-based claims processes. In fact, some of the increase in potential savings noted by the study is being created by a rise in online portal use.

However, providers’ adoption of fully-electronic claims is basically growing only a small amount or even declining for most transactions that can be done via a portal. For example, for prior authorizations, a big increase in portal use correlated with the decline in the adoption of fully-electronic transactions.

For CAQH, the endgame is getting all providers to automate claims processes complete, so the modest to flat growth in automated claims transactions is not exactly good news. In fact, it’s not a winning situation for medical practices either. According to the group’s estimates, each manual transaction costs practices $4.40 more than each electronic transaction and eats up five more minutes of provider time, which can create a real drag on profits.

Meanwhile, processing a single claim electronically through its lifecycle would save medical practices almost 40 minutes on average, and more than $15 in direct cost savings. Meanwhile, processing a single dental claim from start to finish could save dental practices almost 30 minutes on average and almost $11.75.

The CAQH press release doesn’t spell out what’s holding dentists and doctors back from automating the claims process completely, but it’s not hard to guess was going on. Unlike some providers, medical and dental practices typically don’t have deep pockets or large staff they can make this transition. If health plans want these providers to get on board, they’ll probably have to help them make the transition. However, even health plans haven’t invested in automated claims processing enough either.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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