Billing and Coding Tech Technological Developments Within

Billing and Coding Tech

Technological developments within society in general has caused many changes in how society operates and solves its problems. The healthcare field is no exception and has utilized some of these improvements. The purpose of this essay is to describe and highlight some of these developments within this field . Specifically this essay will present information that describes how medical billing and coding practices have implemented technology in order to improve effectiveness. The essay will first present problems within medical and billing practices and then highlight ideas on how they may be improved and further developed to help eliminate unnecessary actions and focus on the healing process itself.

Current Problems

White (2010) highlighted some important problems that many are experiencing within medical and billing processes. She noted " billing mistakes can cost your practice money, frustrate your patients and even put your relationship with insurance providers at risk; however, the vast majority of billing mistakes can be avoided. " The three most common problems that workers encounter are: simple data errors, incorrect coding and duplicate billing.

Humans are inclined to make mistakes and the human factor can be harmful if health care workers are careless. Sometimes simple things like illegible handwriting may cause huge problems and miscommunication. If a person's writing is not read with the writer's intent it may cost money, time and risks the health of the patient. Medical insurance billing can be an overwhelming and complex process, even for those who are involved with it daily. The effectiveness of the billing process can significantly impact the finances of a practice.

Billing and coding information is meant to be distributed to many different recipients in order to complete many transactions. Insurance companies tend to misplace these claims or even never receive them. This process requires organizations to spend time and resources to double check their mistakes and ultimately affects the effectiveness of the health care process. The profiting of health care also causes some of these procedures to be interpreted to provide the most money to the health care organizations, putting certain ethical principles in question as well.

Privacy is also threatened in this new era of accessible information as well. Patients are entitled to having their privacy protected when seeing health care professionals but this becomes very difficult when personal information floats around many different places on a trail that is often difficult to follow. Standardization also becomes a problem within this global field as information is often shared about certain practices that can have positive results if applied correctly but may leave many ill patients without cures or solutions even though they are available but not easily accessible.

Solutions

In recent times, developments have been made to address some of the problems mentioned. Many different organizations, both governmental and private, have contributed to focusing on these issues. Through a combination of various sources problems are becoming solutions within this field by maximizing and utilizing a holistic and general approach to these circumstances.

The 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) is one approach to help standardize the field. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), " The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is designed to promote international comparability in the collection, processing, classification, and presentation of mortality statistics. " This technology has helped many find common ground within this field to help make coding and billing processes easier.

The United States Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in 1996 to help institute measures to protect the privacy of patients. Gosfield (2002) wrote " the HIPAA regulation provides the first comprehensive federal protection for the privacy of individually identifiable health information. The regulation increases consumer control over the use and disclosure of their medical information. It also establishes appropriate safeguards that must be followed to protect the privacy of patients' health information."