Medical Billing Companies & Consultants in Columbus, OH

Ascent Medical Management is a physician service organization (PSO) in Columbus, Ohio. It handles the administrative side of running a medical practice, including billing, provider credentialing and risk management. The firm has worked with local practices for more than 22 years. It acts as an outsourced back office for physicians who want to spend their working hours on clinical care rather than on paperwork and practice operations.

Background and structure

The organization began when a group of obstetrics and gynecology practices joined together. By combining, they could buy and negotiate as one larger group rather than as separate offices. That origin still shapes its mission. Ascent aims to help OB/GYN physicians stay independent while giving them some of the scale that bigger groups usually have. Its stated goals are to lower operating costs, take administrative work off practice staff and give practices more bargaining power with insurers and other vendors.

Services

The company offers a focused set of practice support services rather than a broad catalog of software or products. Its published offerings include:

• Medical billing and follow-up: managing insurance billing for client practices and following up on claims
• Provider credentialing: handling the credentialing paperwork physicians need to work with payers
• Co-op services: pooling the purchasing and negotiating power of member practices
• Risk management: support for physician practices
• Practice management: help with routine administrative tasks

For buyers comparing billing vendors, Ascent stands out because it pairs billing with group purchasing and payer negotiation. A standalone billing company usually works within whatever payer terms a practice already has. Ascent's PSO model is also meant to improve a practice's position with payers and vendors by using the leverage of a larger group.

Who they serve

Women's health practices are the core clientele, and the firm's OB/GYN roots give it close knowledge of that specialty. However, it does not work only with obstetrics and gynecology. The company also offers its professional services to physician practices in other fields. Because it focuses on helping doctors stay independent, it is most relevant to private practices that want to keep ownership while outsourcing non-clinical work.

Working with Ascent

New clients start by booking a consultation with the firm. The Columbus office is open regular business hours, Monday through Friday. The company describes its value in terms of affordable administration, financial growth for client practices and better efficiency, so physicians can give more attention to patients. Buyers should know that the website describes services only in general terms.

It does not name the software platforms the firm uses, its pricing model or any performance figures, so buyers should ask about these during a consultation.

RhinoBill Systems Inc. is a Columbus, Ohio company that makes web-based software for Medicaid claim billing. It works only with home health care in Ohio. Its clients include independent providers, such as licensed practical nurses and other caregivers who bill Medicaid themselves, and home health agencies that submit claims for their staff. The company's copyright notice dates its operations to 2013, and Ohio Medicaid lists it as an authorized EDI trading partner for professional claims.

What the Platform Does

RhinoBill does not take over a provider's whole revenue cycle the way a full-service billing firm would. It gives caregivers an online tool for preparing and sending their own claims, and the workflow is meant to cut down on the paperwork the state Medicaid system usually requires. Each patient's details are entered once and reused on later claims.

The submission steps are designed to be straightforward, and a feature called Claim Recycle™ lets users reuse earlier claims so recurring visits don't have to be keyed in again. Providers can bill as soon as a visit ends or wait and submit a batch at a time that suits them.

• Claims to the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM)
• Claims to the Department of Developmental Disabilities (DODD) for selected waiver procedure codes, including homemaker/personal care, home-delivered meals, nutrition and non-medical transportation
• MyCare Ohio plans, including Anthem, Buckeye, CareSource and Molina
• Managed Care plans, including AmeriHealth, Humana and United, among others
• Quick claim entry and claim history search for agency accounts

How It Works With Clients

RhinoBill offers two separate products, one for independent providers and one for agencies. Accounts are paperless, and subscription fees are collected automatically by card or bank withdrawal. New users get a trial month and don't need to enter payment details to sign up.

Independent providers are billed month to month and only pay for months in which they actually submit claims. Customers who refer other providers earn free months of service. The company puts a lot of weight on helping first-time users with Medicaid's rules.

Its support staff walk newer caregivers through their first submissions and also help with setup tasks such as adding DODD as a payer.

What Sets It Apart

RhinoBill focuses on a single state and a single care setting. That narrow focus could help Ohio home health caregivers who want a tool built around the payers, waivers and procedure codes they actually use, rather than a general-purpose billing package. The site also offers free continuing education to providers, which goes beyond billing alone.

Testimonials on the site come from an LPN in Concord and an agency in Columbus, which points to a client base that includes both solo nurses and small agencies across the state.

Buyers should keep in mind that RhinoBill is a self-service software platform with customer support, not a company that handles coding, denial appeals or collections for them. Home health providers in Ohio who would rather handle their own Medicaid, DODD and managed care claims through an inexpensive, subscription-based online tool will probably find it the best fit.

Operating under the legal name Specialized Medical Billing & Revenue Recovery Services, LLC (SMB & RRS), Specialized Medical Billing is a Worthington, Ohio firm that handles billing and advisory work for healthcare organizations on an outsourced basis. Since opening in 2012, it has served doctors' offices, medical facilities and larger centers throughout the Columbus metropolitan area. The business exists to absorb the administrative tasks tied to getting paid, freeing providers to focus on care.

Services

Clients may engage the firm for their entire revenue cycle or bring it in for just one piece of the process. Its core lines of work include:

• Continuous billing, in which claims go out each day and unpaid accounts are pursued until resolved
• Recovery of aged receivables, carried out within the client's existing software and according to the client's rules, aimed at collecting outstanding insurance amounts
• Medical coding performed by credentialed coders who concentrate on particular specialties and use the CPT and ICD-10-CM code sets
• Credentialing and insurer agreements, ranging from investigating which plans a practice could join to filing applications, planning fee schedules, examining contract terms and enrolling providers
• Advisory services for practices, such as evaluating how an office operates, checking the accuracy of its codes, resolving discrepancies found in audits, negotiating with managed care organizations and guiding regulatory adherence

How They Work With Clients

Every client receives its own team of billing staff, and responsiveness to patient inquiries is a stated priority. Because the work is outsourced, a practice avoids the expense of employing billers on its own payroll.

For coding engagements, SMB ties a closed-loop process into whatever billing platform the client uses and relies on workflow software that follows every record and shows where it stands. Deliverables include quality checks, reporting on a daily, weekly and monthly cycle, feedback reports that clients can tailor, and scheduled meetings to review progress.

Rather than presenting itself as a third-party supplier, the company frames its role as part of the client's own office.

Specialties Served

A wide range of medical fields appears on the firm's new-client form, among them acupuncture, anesthesiology, cardiology, gastroenterology, home health, imaging, neurology, neurosurgery, OB/GYN, oncology, orthopedics, pain management, trauma, podiatry, pulmonology, rehabilitation, sports medicine, surgical specialties and urology. According to the company, its advisory services fit organizations of every maturity level, whether a brand-new office or a group that has operated for many years.

Background, Team and Compliance

Adrianne Nittala, who founded the firm and serves as its president, launched it following a stint running operations as practice administrator for an orthopedic group in the area. That position put her in charge of personnel, payer agreements, coding, collections and regulatory matters for a practice spanning several specialties.

Her career in billing and practice management stretches beyond twenty years, and her education includes a Human Resources Management degree along with a second degree in Health and Human Services. Coders, receivables staff and supervisors make up the rest of the team. Amber Knight, a CPC-certified supervisor overseeing coding and billing, joined in 2016.

Deborah Becker, who supervises billing support, has been part of the firm from its first day and instructs incoming employees on practice management software.

The company states that it adheres to HIPAA rules and OIG regulations. Its methods for doing so include compliance education for employees, recurring audits of coding and billing activities considered high risk, and revisions to internal procedures whenever federal requirements shift.

Practices weighing their options may find the firm appealing for three reasons: it maintains an office in Central Ohio, its leadership has direct experience administering a medical practice, and it lets clients purchase coding, receivables recovery, credentialing or advisory work individually or combine them into a full revenue cycle arrangement.