The healthcare industry’s transition from paper to electronic health records (EHRs) has impacted medical billing quite profoundly. While EHR systems are, for the most part, efficient, and allow for ease of data access and connectivity, they have also created new challenges for billers. Adapting processes and workflows to EHRs has been crucial to make use of their advantages for streamlined billing.

For providers, implementing EHRs needed major investments in both time and money. However, EHRs are now mandatory to participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs. While the learning curve has been steep, most providers now rely on EHRs as indispensable tools. Their effects have fully permeated the medical billing landscape.

Advantages of Billing with EHRs

EHRs have helped improve billing operations in a few ways:

• Automated medical coding suggestions based on documentation help code assignment. According to the folk at Find-A-Code.com, this assists in selecting accurate codes.
• Integrated practice management and EHR systems eliminate data silos. Information seamlessly flows to billing.
• Faster access to charts and orders lets billers work more efficiently than tracking down paper records.
• Clinical decision support prompts providers to capture required billing info like orders during visits. This helps prevent claim denials.
• Care delivery tracking via timestamps provides solid documentation to verify coding choices for audits. 
• Reporting dashboards offer visibility into revenue cycle KPIs to help tackle issues proactively and improve performance.
• Tools like automated claim scrubbing reduce errors and denial rates by detecting problems before submission.
• Interoperability facilitates transmission of claim data directly to payers from the EHR system.

Overcoming New Obstacles 

Still, EHR use also ushered in obstacles that billing teams have had to overcome:

• Information overload makes it hard to identify relevant billing details buried within lengthy records. Important data is harder to locate.
• Copying forward documentation from visit to visit perpetuates errors. This “cloned” content often lacks the specificity needed to support coding.
• Drop-down documentation choices tempt providers to simply click without entering medically necessary details. Documentation quality suffers, creating audit risks. 
• System interfaces, upgrades and glitches can corrupt records or delay access. They disrupt billing workflows until issues are resolved.
• Providers dissatisfied with EHR usability may avoid thorough documentation, despite the impact on billing. Rushed or problematic EHR interaction hurts documentation practices.
• Security protocols like automated logoffs impede productivity by forcing billers to frequently re-authenticate when accessing records.

These obstacles demanded alternative approaches to maintain billing performance:

• Providing continuous EHR training and feedback to providers on documentation needs for accurate coding and complete claims. 
• Auditing records regularly for cloning issues and lack of specificity. Identify documentation improvement opportunities.
• Establishing protocols like mandatory billing reviews of charts to affirm coding logic and catch problems.
• Developing EHR templates, tools, and protocols to prompt comprehensive documentation during patient visits.  
• Creating standing orders for routine tests to ensure they document all components when done.
• Adding billing personnel to EHR optimization teams to advocate for enhancing revenue cycle functions.

Adapting to the Future

Looking ahead, leveraging artificial intelligence and natural language processing to extract billing insights from unstructured EHR data will be key. As systems become more sophisticated at parsing narrative content, documentation can become less rigid. This may relieve “template burnout” that detracts from documentation quality today.

Similarly, automated coding based on algorithms applied to full chart context could eliminate common errors. Systems capable of continually self-learning on new records could surpass the accuracy of manual coding. Claims management platforms will also become more integrated with EHRs.

Conclusion

The future of EHRs and medical billing will demand flexibility and innovation to fully harness technology advances for enhanced efficiency and improved cash flow. Adapting billing to EHRs will remain an evolving challenge, but one that delivers significant rewards.