Become a More Productive Physician with Training in Medical Codes
As a busy physician, you may think getting trained in medical billing codes wouldn’t be the smartest use of your time. Only people who want to become certified professionals in the field need to take billing and coding training courses, right? Surely that’s why CPT® codes weren’t part of your med school curriculum or covered during your residency.
But the truth is, getting physician coding training is a smart move for many reasons.
For starters, the more you know about medical coding, the more money you can earn.
That’s a major reason we at MDCodePro educate healthcare professionals in CMS documentation and coding guidelines. When you correctly use our streamlined method of meeting key criteria, you’ll be able to bill at higher levels when called for. You’ll get the full, appropriate reimbursement you deserve from Medicare and from commercial insurers who follow Medicare’s lead. In fact, the hundreds of doctors who’ve already learned and started using the MDCodePro approach have seen their annual revenue go up $30,000, on average.
Also, knowing more about how to choose CPT® codes gives you greater peace of mind when facing audits.
No training completely removes the possibility of third-party audits, of course. But once you’re using a documentation and coding method that’s been validated in multiple audits, as the MDCodePro method has, you’ll rest easier. You’ll know your charts and notes for any visit support whatever code you assign—even the higher codes you’ve worried might mark you as an outlier. As long as you’re accurately documenting your work, you can code it as it deserves, confident your records will back up your decision.
But increasing your coding knowledge and skill can increase more than your income and confidence in audits. It can also increase your efficiency.
We know: “Efficiency” may not be the first word that comes to mind to describe CPT® codes, let alone the thousands of pages of regulations for using them. But let us show you how these codes can make you a more effectual healthcare provider.
Three Ways Training in Medical Coding Makes You a More Efficient Physician
When physicians like you invest in coding training to get a better grasp of the basics and how to apply them, they can see big dividends in their efficiency.
How? Here are just three ways:
- Save time searching for information: Training in medical coding helps you appreciate exactly how crucial your thorough and accurate documentation is.The complexity of your medical decision-making (MDM) and the risk your patient bears determine any visit’s optimal CPT® code. Keeping this key concept in mind, you’ll develop the habit of documenting information about complexity and risk at the level of detail you need to support those codes. Consequently, you’ll spend a lot less time fielding questions after the fact from coders and billers. They won’t need you to clarify your note or fill in gaps in the chart, because you’ll be documenting visits clearly and comprehensively on a more consistent basis.Your practice will also spend less time rewriting denied claims and then submitting those claims again. The result? Less time wasted as you wait to be reimbursed.
-
Collaborate more effectively with fellow providers and with your patients: The improved documentation habits you develop through your training will also improve coordination and collaboration within your practice or department.When you examine real-world medical coding examples (as you will in the MDCodePro video lectures), you’ll see how the documentation you use to select a visit’s optimal CPT® code contains data other healthcare providers need to set priorities for your patient’s future care. Your accurate documentation helps determine the next provider’s course of action. Your training in medical coding ends up saving time and money for everyone. It can also facilitate closer collaboration with patients themselves. Their ability to plan and pay for their care is a major factor in how much and how quickly you get paid. Based on your detailed, well-documented records, your administrative staff can verify patients’ insurance eligibility, determine their financial responsibilities, and help them create a financial plan—all of which means your practice spends less time collecting patient balances. - Improve patient outcomes and satisfaction: Of all the metrics used to measure your efficiency, improved outcomes are the ones that matter most to the medical team’s most important member: the patient.The best training in medical coding never lets you forget patients are more than the numbers in a code. Optimal medical coding can increase your revenue, but it will also improve patient outcomes because it facilitates customized care.Consider Dr. John Cuddeback’s experience. He’s the chief medical informatics officer for American Medical Group Association, and saw firsthand how “accurate, complete coding” benefits patients. Here’s how he reports the difference it made for outpatients living with diabetes and hypertension: “Their use of outpatient services increased nearly threefold and their clinical outcomes significantly improved . . . Better coding . . . helped identify high-risk patients and allowed providers to more quickly intervene and get them the care they needed.”
Improve Your Efficiency with MDCodePro Training
If you think physician coding training can make you more efficient but worry how you’ll fit it into your schedule, the MDCodePro app is your efficient solution.
It delivers the training you want on your desktop or mobile browser, so you can learn wherever you are, whenever you have the time.
Its online course of short video lectures quickly and clearly outlines the fundamentals of medical coding to remember when seeing and treating patients, and when documenting your services.
And its intuitive, step-by-step code generator turns the data you provide into a visit’s optimal CPT® code, ensuring you capture all the revenue you’ve legitimately earned.
Your MDCodePro training can bring not only increased personal and practice-wide efficiency but also greater regulatory compliance and maximum compensation for the hard work you do.
Ready to discover more? Give us a call at 219-301-7265, or fill out this form for further information.