Latest Black Book Survey Reveals Outsourcing & Integration Still Top Priorities

Black Book Rankings 2015 User Survey on the Top Integrated Electronic Health Records, Physician Practice Management, and Billing Vendors is out. Some of the survey's key findings from the last few years have remained the same or intensified. The trend among practices in the survey has been towards outsourcing, upgrading, and integrating technology to streamline revenue cycle management and improve revenue.

 

Last year's survey found that the majority of practices were concerned about declining profitability and the need to improve billing technology and processes to survive. Some of this year's key findings include:

84% of all physician practices agree their billing and collections systems/processes need upgrading in 2015. 

90% of business managers in practices still independent in 2015 confirm that an innovative, seamless RCM/PM/EHR system would ensure long term practice independence, and greatly improve productivity and profitability.

92% of those seeking an RCM/PM upgrade or system change out are only considering an EHR-centric module.

86% of small practices aim to integrate physician practice management, billing services, and EHR into a single vendor solution if possible by 2017.

This year's survey also looked at the benefits practices have seen from upgrades and outsourcing. Practices that opted to outsource to a medical billing service saw significant improvements in collections, follow up on appeals and denials, improvements in coding and compliance, and payment posting. This supports previous studies that have shown improvements in charges, coding level, and denials when using integrated EHR and billing solutions.