Interview with Barry Haitoff, CEO of Medical Management Corporation of America

The following is an interview with Barry Haitoff, CEO of Medical Management Corporation of America.
Barry Haitoff

Tell us about Medical Management Corporation of America (MMCOA).
MMCOA helps physicians and physician groups increase collections, assure compliance, manage overhead and navigate the maze of EMR/EHR, Meaninful Use, PQRS and other Government incentive programs and regulations. With a focus on revenue cycle management, MMCOA helps our clients stay ahead of the curve with things like the transition to ICD-10.

What are the keys to running a good medical billing company?
Like any successful business, I believe the 2 most important assets are people and systems. We hire, retain and cultivate quality individuals and empower them with state of the art systems and technology. We never settle for status quo and continue to look for better ways of doing things. My style of leadership is one of servitude. It is my goal to provide all staff members a great work environment, financial incentives and proper tools to perform their functions.

What’s your take on the economics of outsourcing medical billing? Where’s the ROI for an office that’s considering going with an outside medical billing company like yours?
I tell physicians, “do what you do best and outsource the rest”. Your tax work is handled by a professional accountant, your legal work is handled by a professional attorney, who is handling your billing? Outsourcing your billing can sometimes be more expensive than keeping it in-house, however, the return should far outweigh the added cost.

Most practices do not have adequate resources in their billing department to do the right job. A great deal of money winds up being left on the table. There is a reason that the tallest buildings in most metropolitan cities are owned by insurance companies. A quality billing company will increase your collections at a rate that will far exceed the fee.

In addition, because the typical fee structure is based on a percentage of collections, not only does the billing company have “skin in the game” to do a good job, the billing overhead of the practice is better managed. If one or more physicians are out of the office on vacation resulting in lower charges, that eventually results in lower collections. With billing in-house the practice still pays salaries, benefits, software licenses etc. All the fixed costs remain in place regardless of collections that month. With outsourced billing company, the practice’s cost for billing is directly in proportion to the amount collected that month.

What are some of the biggest changes to medical billing that have happened over the past couple years?
EMR/EHR, PQRS, ePrescribing, HIPAA, Meaningful Use, Accountable Care Organizations, Value/Quality based reimbursement, Bundling, Health Insurance Exchanges, added governmental regulations, OIG compliance and soon…..ICD-10, ICD-10, ICD-10. ICD-10 will prove to be the biggest challenge to date. We’re ready!

How is medical billing going to be impacted by things like ACOs (Accountable Care Organizations) and value based reimbursement?
Someone will still need to make sure that services rendered are reimbursed properly. More challenging, someone will need to distribute funds appropriately to the myriad of providers involved. There will be a greater need for revenue cycle management as payments are bundled.

Is healthcare ready for ICD-10? What are you doing to make sure you’re ready?
Our research to date says no. Providers and staff are not yet trained. Insurance carriers and software vendors have not yet successfully tested.

We have established an ICD-10 committee headed by our Director of Healthcare Informatics. We have begun informing and educating our clients and staff, researching tools, attending training sessions, initiating dialogue with our software vendors and staying up to date.

In what ways has the Accountable Care Act (Obamacare) and the health insurance exchanges impacted your clients?
I’d say that it’s caused a whirlwind of confusion. Providers must take the time to determine which HIX plan networks they’re in, so as not to provide care outside of a contracted relationship with the HIX plans, which predominantly lack out-of-network coverage. We expect our clients to become busier. We expect the additional covered lives to find their way into our clients’ offices. We have helped our clients figure out if they are participants in the Exchanges in their area.

A number of EHR companies have started doing medical billing. How do you differentiate the services you offer versus an EHR vendor?
Most of the EHR vendors that have just started doing medical billing, just started doing medical billing. MMCOA has been in business for 18 years, growing primarily by word of mouth. Some of the EHR vendors are publicly held companies whose most important stake holder is their shareholders. Our most important stakeholder is our clients. We have had clients leave us for those solutions and have since come back. We will continue to provide quality service on a consistent basis and will never sacrifice integrity for growth.

What are the biggest revenue cycle management issues you see in organizations?
Not enough staff. Outdated or inadequate technology. Lack of leadership. Lack of ongoing training. Lack of incentive.

Where do you see revenue cycle management going in the future?
My crystal ball is broken right now. Seriously though, there is a lot of consolidation in our industry and the smaller billing companies will likely go out of business or be acquired. Physicians and physician groups will continue to need assistance with their reimbursements. Unless all healthcare providers wind up employed by an ACO, Hospital System or other Healthcare entity with adequate revenue cycle management expertise, there will be a need for continued navigation of the maze we know as healthcare revenue cycle management.

Medical Management Corporation of America, a leading provider of medical billing services, is a proud sponsor of EMR and HIPAA.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

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