Medical Billing Companies & Consultants in Long Beach, CA

Argus Medical Management, LLC is a physician practice management company and management services organization based in Long Beach, California. It started in 1995 and works mainly with independent doctors and healthcare organizations in Southern California. For buyers looking at medical billing vendors, its main draw is that billing and electronic medical records are bundled with a wider set of administrative services. This lets a practice hand off much of its non-clinical work to one partner.

Who Argus Serves

The firm's clients fall into four broad groups. Each one gets a different mix of services:

• Individual physicians who want billing, records and back-office help
• Medical groups trying to control rising overhead and complexity
• Hospitals, IPAs, ACOs and other organizations that want to offer management services to affiliated doctors
• Independent physician billing companies that need technology and support

Services and Technology

The core offering is physician billing paired with EMR support. Around it, Argus offers a purchasing cooperative that gives members group buying discounts, as well as staff administration that takes over hiring and HR work. It also helps physicians open a new practice or buy or sell an existing one.

For larger organizations, Argus provides turnkey MSO services covering the full range of practice management. These can support a medical foundation model, where a hospital or IPA links its physicians through shared administration. Billing companies can use an application service provider (ASP) arrangement.

Under this setup, a billing firm uses Argus's billing and EMR platform to add services for its own clients and cut costs, without building its own systems. Argus has developed proprietary platforms of its own. It launched ArgusLink in 2009 and ArgusCore in 2013, after moving to web-based systems in the mid-2000s.

History and Milestones

Argus began alongside a primary care physician group that later became a multi-specialty organization. The company became independent from CHW in 2001 and began outsourcing in 2004. It added co-management work in 2009, and in that same year it won its first formal bid to serve Providence independent physicians.

In 2010 Providence Health System named it one of two preferred vendors for its non-foundation physicians. Argus formally launched its billing company model in 2011, joined the Coast ACO in 2012 and created an offshoring joint venture in 2013. That year it also added a malpractice risk management program.

By 2014 the company had grown to about 100 employees and had started a channel partner program.

Credentials and Recognition

Argus says it was the first Optum channel partner, starting in 2001, and is still the largest. Optum named it Channel Partner of the Year in 2009 and again in 2014. It also gave Argus an EMR Master Award in 2010 and named it MU Consultant of the Year in 2013.

In 2011 Argus was the first channel partner to help a physician reach Meaningful Use, and by 2013 more than 70 of its physicians had been certified. Its billing and EMR director has received an Optum lifetime achievement award. Its physician leadership includes current and former chiefs of staff at local hospitals and IPA presidents.

Several of these doctors also sit on the ACO board.

Client testimonials on the company's site mention fast answers to billing questions, better collections compared with previous vendors, and relief from staffing worries. Doctors also say they keep their clinical independence. Buyers who want a billing partner that can also take on practice operations, purchasing and organization-wide management may find this combination of services worth evaluating.

Master Medical Billing Inc is a professional billing company based in the California Heights neighborhood of Long Beach, California. Its business listings identify medical billing as its core focus, which positions it as an outside resource for healthcare providers who would rather hand off the administrative side of getting paid.

The firm is also registered with the state as a California corporation. The street address on that registration matches the Long Beach location shown in its listings, which gives anyone verifying the business a consistent record.

Who it serves and what it does

The company's clients are healthcare providers. According to the available listings, its role is to make sure billing and insurance claims are handled accurately and then followed through after they leave the provider's office. For a practice, this kind of arrangement typically means in-house staff spend less time on paperwork, and someone pays closer attention to whether submitted claims are actually moving toward payment. The services documented for the firm are:

• Medical billing carried out on behalf of healthcare providers
• Insurance claim preparation and processing, covering the work of assembling claims and getting them submitted
• Ongoing billing management, meaning continued oversight of a provider's billing rather than a one-time task

Taken together, these services describe a vendor that stays involved across the life of a claim, from the point it is put together through the tracking that follows. The listings present accuracy and follow-up as the two pillars of that work.

History and location

One directory listing states that the firm has operated for roughly 19 years. If that figure is accurate, it points to long-standing roots in the Long Beach market. The company works out of a single office in the city, and no additional branches appear in any of the records reviewed. Providers who prefer a locally based billing partner may find this relevant. The listings do not say whether the firm limits its client base to the surrounding area.

Information gaps to address

The company's website is minimal and currently displays only the business name. As a result, several details that buyers usually weigh when selecting a billing vendor are not publicly documented. Before signing on, prospective clients should ask the firm about:

• Which medical specialties or practice types it has experience with
• The billing software and systems it uses or supports
• Staff qualifications and any professional credentials
• How its fees are structured
• What the onboarding process looks like for a new practice

What can be said with confidence is that Master Medical Billing Inc is an established Long Beach corporation dedicated to medical billing, with a stated emphasis on accurate claims and continued management. A direct conversation with the company is the most reliable way to fill in the remaining specifics and judge whether its approach fits a given practice.

MedX Medical Billing Service, Inc. is a revenue cycle firm in Long Beach, California. It works for healthcare organizations and physician practices. Its work covers every stage of a provider's dealings with insurance payers.

That starts with enrolling and contracting providers, moves through coverage checks and authorizations, and continues through claims, collections and work to improve what a practice is paid. The company combines hands-on billing knowledge with payer-facing operations and automated workflows. Its stated goal is to raise collections and take administrative work off clinical staff.

Core Services

MedX groups its services into four main areas:

• Billing and receivables: sending claims to payers, recording payments, working denied claims, filing appeals, following up on outstanding A/R and pursuing collections.
• Eligibility and prior authorization: confirming patient coverage, checking whether a service needs authorization, submitting requests, following up with payers and handling exceptions. The aim is to prevent avoidable denials.
• Credentialing and contracting: enrolling providers, credentialing them with payers, helping with contracts and managing network participation so practices can build and keep payer relationships.
• Reimbursement optimization: reviewing fee schedules and contracts and negotiating with payers to find room for better rates.

Specialties Served

The firm lists experience in several clinical specialties, mostly in pediatric and hospital-based care. They are allergy, obstetrics and gynecology, general pediatrics, pediatric critical care, hospitalist billing for children and adults, professional billing for neonatology, and adult critical care. Coding and payer rules can be complex in inpatient and intensive care settings, so practices working there may find this focus useful.

How MedX Works With Clients

Experienced billing specialists, not generalists, handle each client's receivables. The team keeps reviewing payment trends to find ways to lift collection rates. When something does not add up, staff look into it and talk with the practice about coding questions so both sides can agree on a fix. MedX says it challenges insurer decisions instead of accepting them, to keep each client's denial rate low. Staff also contact patients to collect balances on the practice's behalf.

Each client gets a dedicated client manager with a strong billing background who answers questions and handles concerns. MedX also offers detailed reports so practices can see their full collections picture at any time. This helps owners and administrators who want to track performance closely.

What Sets MedX Apart

Compared with other billing vendors, MedX stands out for how much of the payer process it covers, from credentialing through contract negotiation. It also pairs specialist staff with automation and steady follow-up. Its specialty list makes it a good fit for pediatric groups, neonatology and critical care providers, hospitalist programs and women's health practices. The company works from an office in Long Beach. It suits organizations that want one partner for both front-end payer tasks and back-end billing and collections.

Pacific Surgical Billing, LLC (PSB) is a healthcare revenue cycle and business services firm based in Long Beach, California. It works with medical practices, physician groups and facilities such as surgery centers, handling both professional and facility billing. PSB stresses that its whole team works in California and that it does not use a foreign workforce, which may matter to buyers who want their billing done onshore.

Billing and Revenue Cycle Services

Billing and collections are PSB's core service. The firm submits claims for both in-network and out-of-network services and follows up on claims that went unpaid or were paid too little. It also pursues balances that patients still owe. PSB uses technology platforms that tie into electronic health records and give clients access to reporting, so practices can see how their accounts receivable are doing. Its main services include:

• Professional and facility claim billing
• Revenue cycle management with EHR integration
• Follow-up on denied, unpaid and underpaid claims
• Collection of patient co-pays, co-insurance and balances
• Credentialing through CAQH and payer enrollment
• Negotiating and renegotiating insurance contracts

How PSB Works with Clients

PSB does not assume one billing setup fits every practice. Before taking over billing, it reviews how the client currently operates. That review covers whether payer contracts are worth keeping, how insurance verification and prior authorization are handled, whether CPT coding is backed up by charting, and what cash-handling controls are in place.

It also looks at how long the practice takes to bill after a date of service and whether the EMR system helps or slows down the revenue cycle. PSB then puts changes in place across people, processes and technology, an approach it calls business process improvement.

Consulting and Advisory Services

Beyond billing, the firm offers advisory work. For new practices and surgery centers, it prepares budgets and pro forma projections and sources equipment and staff. It also oversees accreditation and licensing and advises on self-referral and Stark Law limits. PSB helps clients decide when joining a payer network makes more sense than staying out of network.

It also offers part-time CFO or business manager support, QME management, and help with valuations, mergers and acquisitions. Certified, CPA-level valuations are done through outside professional partners.

Leadership and Background

CEO Mark R. Brown leads the firm. He has worked in healthcare for more than 35 years. His experience covers in-network and out-of-network revenue cycle work, payer contract negotiation, systems design and integration, and M&A advisory. He has built and sold healthcare businesses and served as a part-time CFO for a number of organizations.

For buyers comparing billing vendors, PSB's main differences are its California-only staff, its focus on surgical and facility billing, and its range of services, which runs from credentialing and contracting through to strategic advice.

Overview

TotalCare Management is a Long Beach, California firm that helps private medical practices run the business side of patient care. The company belongs to a national group of offices that focus on medical revenue management. Its work covers billing, improving the revenue cycle, practice administration and general business support for independent physicians. The firm pitches its services to doctors who would rather spend their time treating patients than chasing claims, paperwork and payer rules.

The firm presents itself as a consulting partner that can either take over a process completely or strengthen workflows a practice already has in place. It says it adapts to how each client operates instead of imposing a fixed model. It also stresses lowering overhead while raising the share of revenue a practice actually keeps.

Because its tools are delivered online, clients don't need to buy servers, networks or costly software, and staff can reach the system from any computer with a web connection.

Billing and Revenue Cycle Services

The main offering is iClaim, an outsourced billing service. Physicians hand off the claims workload but keep control over their patient records. Client testimonials on the site describe checking the status of individual claims online at any hour. Several supporting services cover the rest of the revenue cycle:

• CodeRite, which checks coding so each encounter is reimbursed appropriately
• AuditGuard, a review of how a practice codes, bills and gets paid by payers
• ChoicePay, for calculating, processing and collecting patient balances
• QuickCollect, a gentle early-stage collections program for overdue accounts
• CompliancyGuard, compliance tracking for HIPAA and HITECH risk assessments as well as Omnibus rule obligations
• CredentialsNOW, provider credentialing support for organizations large and small
• Cost reduction consulting that aims to cut expenses without lowering service levels

Technology and Patient Engagement

Beyond billing, TotalCare Management offers a set of software products. EMRx is an electronic medical records system set up to match a practice's existing workflow. VirtualCare provides secure web-based telehealth visits that work on any connected device. AutoCard sends printed mail such as postcards, greeting cards and brochures to a practice's patient list.

Doctible supplies patient communication tools meant to improve satisfaction. For dental offices, the company offers DentiMax practice management software. The firm says its electronic solutions carry CMS and HIPAA certification along with Meaningful Use certification. It also says its platform helps practices keep tabs on incentive programs such as MACRA, MIPS and alternative payment models.

Getting Started

New clients can start with a free practice analysis. The company uses a proprietary assessment tool to produce a written report that points out ways to improve almost every area of a practice's operations. Physician testimonials on the site mention better reimbursement thanks to dedicated claim follow-up, less administrative work and more time with patients.

For buyers comparing billing vendors, TotalCare Management pairs outsourced billing with a wide range of compliance, collections, credentialing and software options. It also promises individual attention from a local office.