VOB in medical billing is important for the following reasons:
Accuracy in billing and coding is essential to maintaining a seamless revenue cycle process. VOB provides accurate details related to the patient’s coverage. As a result, it leads to correct claim submissions without errors. It minimizes billing errors and prevents surprise bills for patients.
Be transparent with your patients. This strategy helps gain patient satisfaction and a long-term relationship. Through VOB, a provider can inform the patient about their coverage. Thus, this transparency of cost helps achieve a good healthcare reputation.
Claim rejections create financial problems for medical practices. Therefore, verification of benefits helps to reduce rejections. When everything is verified and correct, claim denials are not possible.
Following the insurance guidelines and policies is compulsory as they help reduce billing contradictions. Likewise, VOB limits the risk of facing compliance issues.
The first step of VOB is patient information collection. It is necessary to check the patient’s financial health before the appointment. The collected information is vital because any error results in claims denials.
After collecting information from the patient, cross-check them with the insurance provider. Likewise, the billing staff ensures the patient’s insurance eligibility. There are two ways of checking the insurance eligibility. It’s either from the patient portal or by calling the payer.
This step includes the verification of the patient’s policy status. The staff checks active or inactive status. The patient’s medical coverage, copays, deductibles, and coinsurance needs verification, too. Furthermore, the staff also checks for preauthorization.
After completing the verification process, all the medical records are listed in a single document. This documentation helps read all the specifics, whether pricing, insurance, or the services rendered.
It is necessary to communicate with patients about their financial responsibilities. Likewise, verify preauthorization if there are any. Similarly, request the patient to pay copays and upfront deductibles to streamline the revenue cycle.
Verification of the eligibility for benefits takes more time via phone and email. It takes time to cross-check the payer’s guidelines for patients’ eligibility.
Healthcare providers have limited access to patient’s insurance information. Due to limited access to insurance information, it is difficult for the provider to collect and verify information.
Incorrect and missed information results in claims denials, which increases the complexity of insurance verification. Therefore, it is necessary to collect authentic information.
VOBs become challenging to maintain due to frequent changes in insurance coverage. Insurance coverage varies from patient to patient. Hence, such conditions lead to claims denials.
To conclude, VOB in medical billing is a verified report of every charge and service. The process is advantageous to medical practices as it prevents inaccurate billing. Further, healthcare providers can outsource medical billing services to reduce denials and manage the revenue cycle efficiently.
