Oncology – the study of cancer – is an incredibly important part of modern medicine. Since oncologists are often assigned to diagnose, assess, and treat cancer patients, it is no surprise that their skills are often in high demand and sometimes fetch quite a high price.
However, this always leads to the awkward issue of billing. A field like oncology requires very reliable and consistent billing to ensure that payments are handled safely and correctly, and that means setting up a billing system or platform that will work in the long term.
But how should an oncology practice approach billing systems, especially if they are thinking of expanding and want to guarantee effective billing across all aspects of their work?
Why Are Billing Systems Important?
Like most medical fields, oncologist’s services are not usually an over-the-counter payment. There are a lot of factors involved in how payments for medical treatments are handled, ranging from various kinds of medical insurance to the fact that not all patients will be paying for the treatment themselves.
These systems can also keep billing data secure while still making it easier to access within the medical business itself, which can be vital for tracking different payments correctly. This helps reduce the number of mistakes that are made when it comes to payments, especially in situations where the overall billing could be more straightforward.
A reliable billing system is an important part of running any medical practice, and oncology practices are no exception. With one, it becomes much easier to properly process and record payments and other factors associated with billing, such as medical insurance claims.
How to Set Up A Billing System
In general, there are three ways that an oncology practice might be considering getting a new billing system: building one themselves, paying for a third-party billing system, or outsourcing the billing entirely.
While these all have their benefits and drawbacks, none of them are necessarily a bad option. However, it is important to approach the need for a new billing system with some common sense, especially as a smaller practice.
Creating Your Own Billing System
Constructing an entirely new billing system from scratch is possible, but it is also generally not an effective use of resources, especially for smaller practices. This is most often chosen when a company wants to be as independent as possible or to make their billing system a product they can lease out to other businesses as well.
This takes a lot of time and effort since you are effectively having to code the whole thing from scratch. A smaller practice may not have the skills, manpower or funds to even attempt this, and even some larger practices may end up wasting a lot of resources on this kind of project when easier options are readily available.
Making a billing platform yourself requires a huge amount of work, more than could be broken down in this simple article. It is best reserved for larger companies that have a direct need for a completely bespoke billing system rather than something that every practice should try.
Paying For Billing Platforms
Instead, for many smaller businesses and practices, it can be more efficient and cost-effective to pay for a billing system that already exists. This allows you to quickly start using a functioning billing system without having to invest too much of your time or money into coding an entire new platform from scratch.
A lot of this billing software will be customizable enough to work for many different industries, meaning that you will not necessarily need to seek out any specific type of billing software. Instead, you can simply pay for and implement the software that will work best for your practice rather than trying to tailor something from scratch.
Of course, this requires that you spend some time looking through the available options to find the best fit for your business. There are a lot of billing systems out there, some of which are more customizable than others, and all of which have their own specific benefits – so you need to spend some time looking at different options before deciding.
It is, however, much easier than trying to make your own billing system. Even if you do have to spend a little more time researching and customizing the system, the end result is often much cheaper and more convenient.
The only downside here is that you rely on a third party. This means that any changes they make to the platform will impact you even if you do not want them, and if the billing company goes bankrupt, you may have to find a replacement platform that you can integrate quickly before theirs stops working.
Outsourcing Billing
In general, a lot of practices are not equipped to handle their own billing, and they do not always have the funds to pay for a bespoke billing platform (or the manpower to run it themselves). In this case, outsourcing billing is a viable and incredibly convenient option that tends to work well for most medical practices.
An oncology billing company like Fortis is a great example of this: getting oncology billing services from Fortis means that you get both the platform and the staff to run it, outsourcing the entire billing process to the Fortis oncology billing services team. This means that you are basically paying to have your billing done for you, with no need to dedicate resources or staff towards it.
Options like this are incredible for medical practices at any scale, especially if you are not interested in developing your own billing system. All you need to do is pay for the service – which may cost a little more than paying for a billing system that your own staff can use, but also saves a huge amount of time and effort.
Of course, like any service, there is not a single best option. Some medical practices may benefit from one option far more than others – so do not hesitate to do some research and explore which method of building a new billing system would work best for your business or practice.
