Is Your Staff Struggling with How to Bill Lab Services? 4 Steps to Better Results
As laboratory services are one of the highest revenue-producing departments in most health systems, it’s incredibly important to bill these services correctly. However, it’s also an area fraught with guidelines and restrictions—and with many staff members throughout the hospital system working laboratory accounts, there is a high risk of errors and inconsistencies. This is a situation we have seen and helped correct in health systems nationwide.
If your organization is struggling with coding laboratory services consistently and accurately, here are the four steps you need to take.
Education Is Key to Staying Compliant
The bottom line is it takes a village to maintain laboratory coding and billing compliance. Laboratory and other hospital staff responsible for ensuring clean claims require the necessary tools and education to stay abreast of current regulatory guidance for coding, billing, and coverage.
The hospital laboratory may require outside resources from time to time to aid in maintaining policies and procedures and educating staff. There are laboratory coding and billing specialists in the healthcare industry who can provide this level of support.
Written by: Tiffani Bouchard, CCS, Vice President of Revenue Integrity
Tiffani has more than 25 years of experience in chargemaster management, hospital bill auditing, claims issues resolution, and coding and documentation reviews for PPS and CAH hospitals nationwide. She has extensive knowledge of CMS coding/billing guidance and regulations and provides on-site training for chargemaster staff, claims processing, and department leadership.