The dental insurance billing records contain confidential patient information. To ensure the safety of this sensitive data, it is necessary that dental practices seek HIPAA compliant dental billing and coding services.
Confidentiality and privacy of health records
The U.S. Congress introduced the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996 as part of the general effort to ensure the confidentiality and privacy of health records. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) lays down protective guidelines for the confidentiality of healthcare information.
Dental practitioners would benefit greatly by outsourcing their routine dental insurance billing tasks to billing companies offering HIPAA compliant dental billing services. A reliable service provider would provide efficient billing solutions and also assure that patient data and records are handled securely in accordance with HIPAA norms.
Benefits of outsourcing medical billing services
HIPAA compliant dental billing and coding service providers see that dental professionals can submit medical bills and claims on time. Benefits of outsourcing to a reliable company:
* Reduces the administrative responsibilities of the dental practice
* Eliminates billing headaches
* Reduces the chances of claim denials
* Improves office efficiency
* Increases reimbursements
* Offers more time for core tasks
HIPAA-compliant dental billing and coding services include demographic entry, charge entry, appointment scheduling and rescheduling, payment posting services, insurance verifications and insurance authorizations; billing and reconciling of accounts, code checking and analysis, AR follow-up, collections management, DRG/ICD-9- CM, HCPCS coding validations, emergency room e-code evaluation, CPT coding, medical coding audits, and more.
A slew of safety measures
To protect patient data from unauthorized access, HIPAA encourages the use of electronic processing and data transfer via router or modem. To ensure the privacy and security of patient medical records, dental billing companies have secure computers with features such as:
* Firewall and antivirus software, which are updated on a daily basis
* File encryption software
* Computers are password protected
* Password protected email and FTP sites
* Passwords to start Windows
* Entire workforce is trained to maintain privacy, confidentiality and security
* Minimum 128-bit encryption for all transferred files
* External drives such as floppy disk drives and USB ports are disabled to prevent illegal copying of documents
Dental billing and coding processes that do not adhere to security norms can invite severe penalties. The billing companies that offer HIPAA compliant services have a pool of professionals to monitor and execute measures to protect against the unlawful disclosure of patient health information while it is transferred via the Internet.
If you plan to outsource the dental billing and coding jobs of your practice, then make sure that the service provider you approach offers effective HIPAA complaint dental billing and coding services at affordable charges.
Author:Bob Kruse
Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/
