According to the ADVANCE Perspective HIM Blog, the American Academy of Professional Coders, a trade association dedicated to serving the medical coding industry, recently created an ICD-10 resource site in preparation for the government’s mandated ICD-10 changeover in October 2013.

ICD-10 is expected to affect all heathcare professionals, not just the administrative medical coders and medical billing staff.

Among the key features include:

• An ICD-10 code conversion tool allowing users to translate an ICD-9 code to ICD-10 instantly;
• ICD-10 news and articles from industry experts helping prepare for implementation;
• Two interactive floor plan tools that show how ICD-10 affects all aspects of a practice or health plan; and
• An online application used to track and graphically measure the ICD-10 implementation progress.

For further information about ICD-10 implementation, please visit the AAPC ICD-10 site.

Part of PRN Funding’s commitment to maintaing strong relationships with our factoring referral network is writing articles for various invoice factoring publications. Now we’ve made it even easier for brokers to access those articles via a special section on our web site: Factoring Broker Articles. Check out one of the most recently posted article below:

Factoring Prospects: Weeding Out the Bad to Find the Good

As cash flow consultants, it’s your job to deliver companies with cash flow issues to the appropriate funding source. Although this task sounds easy enough on paper, in reality, it’s not always a simple feat. Picture this scenario:

You find a candidate in need of cash flow who has been in business for two years, gets paid in less than 45 days and wants to expand. Eager to help this business owner get the cash he needs to expand, you refer this person to one of your factoring sources immediately. The factoring company has communicated to you that they are interested in pursuing the deal, and they’ll have an update for you as soon as they reach out to the prospect. The next day, you get a phone call from the factoring firm telling you that they are no longer interested in the deal.

Has this ever happened to you? If so, then I have some good news. There are three questions cash flow consultants can ask their prospects that will drastically reduce the chances of the above situation ever happening again. And if it hasn’t happened to you yet, and you’re not asking the appropriate questions, then it’s only a matter of time before it will happen.

Continue reading…

Advance Perspective’s HIM Blog recently re-posted a blog post by Don Fornes of EHR Software Advice, in which he discussed the ever-changing eletronic health record (EHR) market and how it’s impacting vendors’ cash flow. The medical transcription factoring specialists and medical billing and coding invoice funding specialists at PRN Funding took the liberty of summarizing the bulk of the post below:

In a nutshell, Fornes’ article talked about how most people would think that the Federal subsidies for EHR implementation would create a massive boom for EHR software industry, however, this concept couldn’t be further from the truth. Based on the data points that Fornes has observed over the past few months, he thinks that most EHR software vendors are actually experiencing a cash flow crunch.

According to Fornes, these EHR software vendors have been pouring cash into marketing and brand awareness initiatives to remain top-of-mind for physicians’ practices and medical facilities, however, most providers have taken a “wait-and-see” approach to EHR adoption.

Couple these two scenarios with the increasing shift for the software industry as a whole to shift to cloud computing because of low monthly pricing.

As a result of EHR vendors investing a lot of money into their business expansion, providers writing fewer checks than anticipated and the checks that are written are much smaller and more spread out, a difficult cash flow scenario has been playing out for a number of vendors. Fornes commented how he’s seen “some EHR vendors stretching their payables out 90 or even 120 days.”

Overall, it was a very informative article, however, what Fornes left out what that EHR vendors have the ability to drastically improve their cash flow by factoring their invoices. For example, an EHR vendor could sell its invoices to PRN Funding and receive cash the same day.

Click here to read Fornes’ original blog post.

TRS Institute, the nation’s leading provider of AHDI-approved online medical transcription and speech recognition training programs, announced that it was adding a Medical Billing and Coding curriculum to its course offerings.

The new curriculum will include:

1. Medical Billing & Reimbursement career preparation
2. Certified Professional Coding for physician’s offices and hospital facilities
3. Accelerated program for Medial Billing and Coding

Click here to read the entire article in the Kansas City Star.

Alice Scott and Michele Redmond, co-authors of 12 books on medical billing and medical credentialing and co-owners of Solutions Medical Billing in Rome, NY, recently wrote an article in BC Advantage entitled: Protect Your Business with Your Medical Billing Service Contract.

The medical billing factoring specialists at PRN Funding pulled the highlights of the article for our medical billing service business owners’ benefit:

For the most part, the authors stressed that the importance of having a specifically tailored contract for medical billing services in place was to help medical billing business owners in the event that something goes wrong in the relationship.

The contract should include the following:

• Specifics for your company. Don’t just use a sample contract. Make it entirely about your medical billing company.
• All the services the medical billing company will provide and their fees.
• How and when the billing company will be paid.
• Provider’s responsabilities.
• How the medical billing service will receive patient and claims information.
• What happens if the the billing service doesn’t get paid.
• Termination policies.

The co-authors also highly recommend for medical billing business owners to hire a lawyer to write the contract. If that’s too costly, then at least have one look it over before using it.

Doing so will prevent medical billing companies from having a huge problem on down the line.

Check out page 12-13 of the latest BC Advantage for the entire article.

Last week, BusinessWeek published an article entitled: Health-Care Bill Surprise: 1099 Nightmare, and we thought the small business owners who read The Factoring Blog should be aware of its contents.

In essence, the article says: Small business owners should be aware of page 737 of the recently-approved healthcare reform bill, as it contains a three-paragraph provision, inserted by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee to help offset the cost of the bill. In a nutshell, this insertion requires companies to report to the IRS payments of more than $600 a year to any vendor. The intent is noble: to capture $2 billion or more a year in taxes on income that currently goes unreported by contractors and small businesses.

Business advocates fear that the new rule will create a massive paperwork headache for small businesses because come 2012, the new rule will expand 1099-MISC reporting to include payments to companies, and for goods as well as services.

Read more here: Health-Care Bill Surprise: 1099 Nightmare.

Did anyone see Vanessa Best’s article in the July issue of BC Advantage? In the article, How to Jumpstart a Successful Medical Billing Business (page 31-32), Vanessa lists 10 steps to start a medical billing and consulting business:

1. Choose a business type.
2. Choose the name.
3. Develop a business plan.
4. Learn about your market.
5. Keep abreast of the medical field.
6. Get reasonably priced software from vendors listed with the BBB.
7. Develop your marketing strategy.
8. Launch your marketing campaign.
9. Establish how much your time is worth and set fees for service.
10. Put it in writing!

Although the medical billing account receivable specialists agree with everything on Vanessa’s list, we thought medical billers and medical billing consultants should add one more thing to the list.

Team up with a medical billing accounts receivable factor. Most medical billing companies and medical billing consultants have to wait weeks to be paid for their billing services. Imagine a world where you sent an invoice to a physician, and you got paid on the same day. PRN Funding’s medical billing account receivable program is designed to do just that!

Check out our medical billing factoring web page for more details.

Even though Jacksonville, FL was not one of the more desirable cities for a medical coding conference, the 2010 AAPC Conference ended up being a good one for PRN Funding.

Phil Cohen (PRN Funding’s owner), Vera Pereskokova (Account Manager) and Nikki Flores (Marketing Manager) had the pleasure of speaking with a number of medical coding business owners and medical coding consultants during the show. All of them showed a great interest in PRN Funding’s medical billing factoring services as well as our medical coding invoice funding program.

Congratulations to Lori H. of Compass Coding Services, who was the lucky winner of our iPod Shuffle and $50 iTunes gift card drawing!

Have a question about invoice funding that hasn’t already been addressed on The Factoring Blog? Mosey on over to PRN Funding’s Web site, where healthcare business owners and cash flow factoring professionals can find a wealth of information.

PRN Funding’s president, Phil Cohen, has been busy writing various articles about factoring over the last few months. Have you been keeping up? Check out the Factoring Industry News section of our web site for his most recent contributions.

Choose from article topics like…

1. Comparing Bank Loans to AR Factoring
2. Top Five Reasons to Factor
3. Factoring Fees Defined
4. Ways to Secure Funding in a Bad Economy
5. Benefits of Home Care Factoring

Happy browsing!

Did anyone happen to catch the article: The Disposable Worker in BusinessWeek last month? If not, don’t fret, the invoice factoring specialists from PRN Funding took the time to summarize some of the interesting article’s main points below:

These brutal economic times has prompted more companies to use temporary workforces. Utilizing temporary employees gives these companies the ability to add and let go employees quickly and easily, relieving them of any kind of fixed costs. Their approach has created an era of disposable workers that will cause lasting damage.

“Older people who lose their jobs are often forced into premature retirement, while the careers of younger people are stunted by their early detachment from the working world.” Through their actions, many employers are laying the groundwork for employees to become alienated and dispirited.

Moreover, there’s a new trend in upper management, in which bosses are no longer rewarded fpr the number of people they supervise. Rather, they are rewarded for short-term profit performance obtained with less staff.

In addition, the article explained how offshoring has increased during the recession. Economists believe that most jobs shipped overseas will remain offshore even when things start improving in order to help companies continue to keep costs down.

The article referred to the European temporary market model as a way to improve conditions in the U.S. At least in Europe, part-timers and temporary workers receive government health insurance and are required to receive wages and benefits comparable to permanent employees.