Step to success: Home work before you hire 1. Check if the company is HIPAA compliant. Find if the company is ISO certified 2. Ask them how they secure patient’s information apart from the HIPAA compliance. 3. Know their experience in the medical billing field. 4. Know their business strategy 5. How many clients do they work for? (know how your job could be done properly without interruption due to external distraction of other clients) 6. Know & analyze the benefits you get from the company 7. Compare the benefits they provide with the benefit you get when you do the job yourself. 8. Know the deadline that they have set up for task accomplishment in each specialty (This is the SLA - The service level agreement, highly important for timely delivery of services) 9. Know the details about the medical billing software they use. 10. Is their technological infrastructure flexible to make changes if required? (In case of adding new clients, process changes etc.,) 11. Confirm their process accuracy % ( errors in the process might lead to delay or denial of payment) 12. Do complete cost analysis. Ask if there are hidden costs 13. Know the basic information about their employees like: How many employees work in the company, how many are certified 14. Is the company supported with the latest technology to perform your function? 15. Does the company work on denial management? a. If they work on it, know the level of service. The most important: Know their business continuity plan in case of emergency, disaster or epidemic disease. How do they continue the business? Other - to dos while hiring a medical billing company: 1. Keep the agreement clear. 2. Have an eye on the company’s performance. 3. Consult how they react to specific business challenges pertaining to medical billing – This is important because you can easily understand their business efficiency In case you have already hired a medical billing company, check if your service provider is doing well: 1. Are they good performers? 2. Do they complete the task in time? (Never do they cross the deadlines) 3. Is the company flexible to your needs and acts smart at the time of emergency? (just like employing more human resources at the time of need and completing the task ) 4. Are they providing you proper monthly reports with suggestions on financial improvement? (are they explanative) 5. Does the company stop with medical billing services alone or gives importance to client satisfaction? 6. How much money do they save you? 7. Are they available to you all time, for your queries and business communication? About The Author: Tanya Gill is the Public Relations Manager for ecare India based in Chennai, India. She has wide knowledge and experience in the medical industry. ecare India is a leading medical billing company offering end-end medical billing services and is backed by extensive domain expertise, latest technology and dynamic compliance norms. ecare is HIPAA compliant and is the first Indian medical billing company to get ISO 27001: 2005 certified for information security management. ecare is also ISO 9001:2008 certified for quality management. By providing outsourced medical billing services, ecare makes it feasible for its clients to focus on core competencies enabling revenue enhancement, process control and work efficiency.