Electronic medical billing has made billing more efficient and much easier through the increased use of electronic medical billing software.Medical billing has become much easier and more efficient through the adoption of electronic billing software. This article is meant to be helpful for those that are in charge of medical offices, and medical billing operations in hospitals. Electronic medical billing will give you a good idea of how to make your life easier and your collections more proactive. It allows you a quicker response time to answer questions on bills before they become past due. Many medical billing offices are overwhelmed with billing due to complicated procedures for payment from insurance companies. Medical billing offices are more efficient with the use of electronic medical billing.

The variety of electronic medical billing software is responsible for the increased productivity in billing. Two types of software are client server (CS) and application service providers (ASP). The client server has a central server and terminals that are linked through a local network. Management of a client server requires configuration, back up, restoration, and upgrades after it is initially installed. Application service providers are usually less expensive than client servers.

When using an application service provider, the central server is located in the vendor's location, and data is transmitted over the internet. Time required for troubleshooting and downtime is lessened. It is more convenient because training can be done online for electronic medical billing. The vendor maintains the technology, recovery and restores and installations and upgrades. This assures you of the latest technology.

Electronic medical billing software offers benefits such as compliance requirements, financial and workflow controls, and accurate procedure coding for patients. It offers cost and productivity savings such as reduced office workload, fewer clerical errors, in addition to improved coding. Increased cash flows come with more accurate and easy billing. Medical offices become less prone to penalties because the likelihood of post-payment audits are reduced.

Many medical offices choose application service providers instead of local client servers because IT staff and equipment expenses aren't necessary. These are the reasons why many medical offices choose the application service provider option over the local client server, terminals and local network option for electronic medical billing. The other reason is application service providers are quicker to implement since there is not equipment installation time involved. Because training can be done online, it is easy to schedule the necessary personnel at flexible times to coincide with work schedules.


Built-in compliance protection prevents electronic medical billing software from committing fraudulent billing or coding practices or issuing duplicate bills. These factors are effective for post payment billing audits done by insurance companies and help document proper procedures used in billing. Because federal and state enforcement agencies have brought multiple actions against medical billing offices, this is an important feature in the event a post payment audit triggers suspicion and causes an overcharge percentage penalty to be assessed. Electronic medical billing makes the billing process accurate and less susceptible to penalties.

There are tax advantages to purchasing the client server equipment, but these may be offset by the reduced front end cash flow. The other consideration is that technology has a tendency to become outdated after 3 years, so you may want to consider the cost effectiveness based on replacement. An application service provider will charge a monthly service fee, but this is small compared to the sizable upfront investment needed to purchase a client server.

As you have learned, electronic medical billing has become a cost effective way to increase cash flow and insure billing compliance. There are two options, the client server or the application service provider, and both are excellent ways to employ electronic billing in your office. Both options are a good way to put electronic medical billing software technology to work in your medical billing office. Once you have decided on electronic billing, the next step is to choose which methods best suits your office.