Medical Billing Companies & Consultants in Gresham, OR

Overview

Astro Medical Billing is a medical billing company owned by Krystal Armstrong. Its office is in Gresham, Oregon, part of the Portland metropolitan area. The firm handles a practice's billing from start to finish, so providers can use one company instead of splitting revenue tasks among several vendors.

The office is near Portland, but the company takes on clients across the wider Pacific Northwest. The copyright line on its website begins in 2013, which suggests it has been offering its services for more than a decade.

The company works with healthcare professionals and practices in any specialty. It doesn't sell a fixed package. Instead, it fits its approach to each client, because every provider and every practice works a little differently. Buyers can expect an arrangement built around their existing workflows and administrative needs rather than a standard template.

Services

The firm's main job is managing the money a practice receives from insurers and patients. It says it aims to keep payments organized, cut down on rejected claims and recover more of the balances that insurance carriers owe. Based on its published description, its services include:

• End-to-end medical billing for individual providers and group practices
• Billing arrangements tailored to each practice
• Insurance claim handling aimed at lowering rejection rates
• Payment tracking and management
• Accounts receivable oversight
• Follow-up to collect outstanding amounts owed by insurers

Why Practices Outsource

Astro Medical Billing explains its service in light of recent changes in how healthcare gets paid. The company notes that insurers have pushed providers to accept reduced reimbursement and that government programs have changed the rules for public health plans. It also says many patients now have less money available for their care.

Because of these changes, billing and receivables take up more of clinicians' attention than they once did. The firm offers outsourcing as a way to keep revenue on track without pulling staff away from clinical work.

Approach and Differentiators

Two points stand out for buyers comparing vendors. First, the company states that it uses no employees or contractors based outside the United States. This may matter to practices concerned about offshore handling of patient and financial information.

Second, the firm stresses protecting the relationship between a practice and its patients while it pursues collections, so chasing payments does not cost the practice patient goodwill. The team describes its purpose as supporting the financial health of client practices so that providers can concentrate on treatment and on good results for the people they see.

The office is open on weekdays during standard Pacific Time business hours, and Saturday meetings are available by appointment. This can suit practice owners who prefer to review billing matters outside clinic hours. Astro Medical Billing may suit providers in Portland and the surrounding region who want a local billing partner with US-based staff and a service tailored to their practice.

Fastnet Medical Billing Service is an outsourced billing firm in Gresham, Oregon. It has worked on the reimbursement side of healthcare since 1994. Its clients are physicians, specialists and clinics across the Portland metro area, Vancouver and Southwest Washington. The firm also takes on practices in other parts of the country. Its aim is to take insurance paperwork off a practice's staff so that providers and front-office teams can spend more of their day with patients.

Services

The company can run a practice's full revenue cycle or handle only selected parts of it. Its offerings include:

• End-to-end billing, from preparing and sending claims through posting payments
• Checking patient coverage and benefits before visits to catch eligibility problems early
• Working denied claims and reviewing past claims to recover missed reimbursement
• Producing patient statements and answering patients' billing questions
• A patient-facing service desk for payment and account questions
• Custom financial reports that show how a practice is performing and where it could grow

New clients can start with a free review of their practice's performance, which helps both sides decide where outsourced support would help most.

Specialties Served

Fastnet works with a mix of primary care and specialty providers. Its experience includes family medicine, primary care, endocrinology, chiropractic care, physical therapy, behavioral health, wellness clinics and naturopathic medicine, along with other specialties. One published client testimonial comes from a physical therapy and MDT clinic that says it has used the firm for about 25 years, which suggests long-term relationships with its clients.

How It Works With Clients

The firm presents itself as part of each client's own office rather than a distant vendor. Clients deal with a small, experienced billing team that gets to know their practice, not a large national call center. It also connects to secure, cloud-based electronic health record platforms so that charting, charge entry and claim submission happen in one workflow.

This reduces the need to enter the same data twice and automates routine billing tasks. The goal is fewer errors, fewer rejected claims and more predictable cash flow.

Background

The business has more than three decades of experience in the Pacific Northwest. It operates from an office in downtown Gresham, east of Portland. Public business listings name Roger Forrester as its principal. Buyers who want a regional, relationship-based billing partner with long experience in physical medicine, behavioral health and integrative care may want to include Fastnet on their shortlist, especially if they want help with denials, eligibility checks and patient billing communication in addition to claim submission.

Service Plus Medical Billing, Inc. is a Gresham, Oregon company that handles billing for medical practices that would rather not do it in-house. The firm says it was founded in 1995 and that its team has more than 55 years of billing experience between them. It works mainly with providers who want an outside partner to manage the revenue side of the practice while clinicians focus on patient care.

Specialties Served

The company bills for several specialties, with a particular depth in behavioral health. It lists the following areas, though its work is not limited to them:

• Mental health and behavioral health, including Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
• General surgery
• Plastic surgery
• Vascular surgery

Its owner also has experience with inpatient and outpatient mental health claims and with telehealth billing. That may matter to psychiatric groups and practices that offer virtual visits.

Services Offered

Service Plus covers the full billing cycle, from before a claim is filed through to collecting what patients owe. Its published services include:

• Checking patient eligibility and benefits
• Submitting claims every week
• Posting payments every week
• Checking that insurers pay according to each provider's contract
• Managing denials and filing appeals
• Sending patient statements monthly
• Preparing reports for clients
• Helping with credentialing, recredentialing, address changes and electronic funds transfer setup

The firm also stresses ongoing accounts receivable follow-up. This includes chasing rejected claims, slow payments and claims that were underpaid, with the goal of keeping cash flow steady for the practice.

How They Work With Clients

Each practice is paired with one account representative who acts as its regular contact. The company aims to get claims right on the first submission, which reduces avoidable denials and back-and-forth with payers. A certified coder on staff reviews coding before claims go out.

The firm describes itself as working like part of the client's own office rather than as a distant vendor. It charges a percentage of the money the practice actually collects, so its income depends on how much the client is paid.

Background and Team

Laura Young, the owner and president, has worked in medical billing since 1999. Her billing staff have completed formal training in medical billing and coding, and the company says they follow HIPAA requirements. The firm emphasizes accuracy, filing claims on time each week, following up on denials early, and treating patients professionally and courteously when they call with billing questions.

Service Plus also runs a phone line where patients can ask about their bills and make payments, which takes that work off the provider's staff. For practices comparing billing partners, the main differences are its long history, its focus on behavioral health and TMS, a single assigned representative, in-house coding review, and fees tied to collections.