Operating a healthcare practice of any kind, whether it’s a western-style medical office or a holistic health service, is a challenging and complicated undertaking. As if providing quality care to patients wasn’t difficult enough, there are many other factors practices must take into account if they want to be successful. Learning the ins and outs of health insurance coverage, for instance, is an ongoing process that changes every year as provider policies are updated. Implementing processes and systems for collecting revenue is also essential, especially if many of the practice’s health services aren’t covered by insurance.
Most of these issues fall under the broad responsibilities of healthcare management and healthcare administration. While these terms are quite common, there is a lot of confusion around them because they are often used interchangeably despite the fact that they do have specific meanings.
The Difference Between Healthcare Administration and Healthcare Management
What is Healthcare Management?
As the term “management” might suggest, this area refers primarily to how the business aspects of a healthcare or holistic practice are handled. The primary focus of healthcare management is to develop a business plan that meets the practice’s specific goals and then execute on that plan using a variety of management, negotiation, and leadership techniques. Most healthcare management professionals hold an MBA or have a background in accounting or facilities management. They are typically responsible for budget management, organizational policies, standards of patient care, marketing, compliance, and various aspects of healthcare law.
What is Healthcare Administration?
While healthcare management emphasizes the business side of a practice, healthcare administration is more focused on overseeing and coordinating the staff within a practice or department. The typical healthcare administrator supports the policies and processes that help medical personnel deliver effective care that impacts patients. While they may at times be responsible for meeting regulatory requirements that are associated with healthcare management, healthcare administrators primarily support, direct, and encourage employees to ensure that they are able to provide the best care. Crucially, they are often considered to be healthcare professionals, and it is common for these roles to be filled by physicians, nurses, or other public health specialists.
Healthcare Administration vs Healthcare Management: Who Handles Medical Billing?
There are a lot of similarities between these roles, and the distinctions are made even more confusing by healthcare organizations that use the terms interchangeably. In general, however, the primary difference is that healthcare managers are responsible for the operation of a facility as a whole while healthcare administrators oversee the operations of specific departments and medical staff.
So which of these roles is responsible for medical billing?
Perhaps predictably, it depends on the specific practice.
Larger healthcare practices and medical facilities generally have dedicated medical billers who are responsible for coding medical services and then filing and submitting claims. Some organizations classify this role as a management position while others consider it administrative. In most cases, medical billers are not required to have any medical training, which would suggest that they’re more on the management side. However, since medical billers must work closely with both medical staff and patients, their role fits more naturally within the framework of healthcare administration.
For smaller healthcare practices, the distinction is far less important because the lines between healthcare management and healthcare administration are not clearly drawn. These practices don’t have the revenue or patient volume to justify the existence of additional office personnel. In many cases, both managerial and administrative are handled by only a few (or even just one) people, in addition to many other tasks they’re responsible for. This is especially true of holistic practices, where the clinician may be responsible for every aspect of their practice without any assistance from employees.
The Value of Outsourcing Holistic Billing
For many acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic practices, it can be difficult to provide quality care to patients while also keeping up with all the demands of healthcare management and administration. Medical billing, in particular, can be incredibly time-intensive, not only requiring holistic practitioners to organize, file, and monitor all billing claims, but also to keep up-to-date on the latest changes to coding and to which holistic healthcare services insurance companies will agree to cover.
Partnering with an experienced medical billing provider that specializes in holistic practices can streamline an office’s operations and allow clinicians to dedicate more of their attention to their patients. While there are many medical billing services available, it’s important to find a provider that understands the unique characteristics of holistic practices and can provide the specialized support that helps these practices to be more successful.
At Holistic Billing Services, we recognize that acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic practices call for a much different approach to medical billing than traditional healthcare practices. That’s why we’ve focused specifically on this growing area of medical care and have partnered with over 1,200 practices to help them improve their revenue cycle management and boost their net collections. Our convenient and secure solutions can take the hassle of insurance verifications, claims processing, and denied claims follow-ups off your hands so you can focus on what matters most: delivering quality care to your patients.
To learn more about how our team of experts can help improve your holistic billing, contact us today for a consultation.