Medical Billing Companies & Consultants in Neptune, NJ

Practice Alternatives, Inc., commonly called PAI, operates from Tinton Falls, New Jersey, and blends two lines of business: medical billing and the creation of healthcare software. The organizations it works with vary widely in size, from single-physician offices and clinics to groups with many providers, physician practices owned by hospitals, and full hospital systems. Its marketing centers on New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, yet the company states that its current client base extends across the country.

How the billing service works

PAI's billing workflow aims to recover revenue a practice could otherwise lose. Staff examine clinical documentation to make sure every service a provider delivered ends up on a bill. Prior to submission, each patient's demographic and insurance details are checked for accuracy and completeness. Every claim's diagnosis codes are matched against its procedure codes, a step that improves how often claims are approved by payers. When one provider repeatedly shows coding discrepancies, PAI meets privately with that clinician for a closer review. The software contains rules linking every scheduled visit to a charge, and outstanding claims receive daily follow-up and status reporting. Practices can choose from several payment collection methods, including the option for patients to pay online. Billing clients additionally receive access to PAI's own practice management system, giving them round-the-clock visibility into, and control over, their receivables.

Software and other offerings

Unlike many billing firms that offer services alone, PAI develops software in-house. Rexpert, its practice management application, has evolved for more than thirty years under the company's own programmers and consultants. AuroraEHR, the company's integrated electronic health record, earned ONC-ACB certification in 2014 for Meaningful Use attestation, and PAI personnel can tailor it to how each physician works. Both applications are web-based, so users can reach their data at any hour from anywhere with an internet connection. Beyond billing and software, PAI provides medical transcription, consulting on practice operations and expansion, and web services, all available separately or as a package.

Specialties served

PAI indicates that its billing services, EHR and software are a good fit for a broad range of disciplines, such as:

• Cardiology, gastroenterology, pulmonology and internal medicine
• General, vascular, thoracic, breast, cosmetic and orthopedic surgery, plus neurosurgery
• Pediatric subspecialties such as endocrinology, oncology, pulmonology, sleep medicine and pediatric intensive care
• Neonatology, developmental pediatrics and child psychology
• Gynecology, gynecologic oncology and genetics
• Radiology, interventional radiology and ophthalmology
• Physical medicine and rehabilitation, physiatry, chiropractic and podiatry
• Hospitalists, house physicians, psychiatry and family medicine

Background

PAI has supported physicians on the business side since 1982. In the years since, the company says its client roster has included in excess of five hundred physicians representing over seventy medical disciplines, practicing in settings that span independent offices to hospitals. Combined, its leaders bring more than eighty years of healthcare experience, gained both in hospital environments and in private physician practices. PAI stresses personal, customized attention for each client; its staff answer client questions and produce custom reports upon request. The company also presents its in-house software as a way to keep pace with changing technology and shifting regulations. Practices considering a switch may ask for a free, no-obligation assessment.