What is Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA) and its Advantages in Medical Billing?

Electronic Remittance Advice

ERA, also known as electronic remittance advice, makes medical insurance billings easier, more efficient, and error-free. As the electronic data interchange, it puts out all the information related to medical billing, making the associated activities easier for all the concerned parties. The electronic remittance advice entails everything from the payment claims of the provider, explanations related to the description and denial codes to the reasons why it could have been denied. 

Electronic Remittance Advice Vs Explanation Of Benefits

EOBs, referred to as the explanation of benefits, are paper-based pieces of information. Quintessentially, they have the same information as EOBs, but surely reduce the paperwork and accumulation of files. At the same time, as this is the electronic information and has a high level of automation, the chances are extremely low. These ERAs detail any medical claims that have been paid or denied, the modified amount owed, and the final status of the claim. As a matter of fact, the final payments mentioned by it are ‘mandatory’ payments that are to be made by the insurance company.

Electronic Remittance Advice Reduces Delays

One major issue faced by medical practitioners is the delay of the payment reimbursement for medical services they provide to patients. A lot of times, they get to know after repeated follow-ups that the claims have actually been denied and rejected, without any intimation. This not only wastes a lot of time for these medical practitioners but also affects their motivation to go ahead with their regular business activities. This is when electronic remittance advice comes to play! 

Electronic remittance advice surely helps healthcare providers get rid of these issues and have a speedier mode of work. The fact that they ensure the payments are made directly to the bank accounts of the healthcare providers augments the efficiency of the process. Efficiency is, however, not the only benefit offered by this electronic system. Rather, it also makes things highly accurate as an explanation of even the smallest details is offered. Even when there are multiple payers that owe money to the health care practitioner, the payment accelerator offers an amazing portal that is highly secure and gives a complete view of the details of payments. 

To put it simply, the ERA is basically the information file that lets the medical service provider know every related detail regarding the services to be paid. 

Benefits Associated With Electronic Remittance Advice

Medical billing gets really easy through electronic remittance advice. The ERA is increasingly getting accepted in the world of medical billing and rightfully so. It aids all three parties in the system including the medical practitioners claiming reimbursement, the insurance company paying the money and the patients requesting this payment. Here are some other benefits associated with it:

Augments Efficiency Of The System

This is probably the biggest advantage offered by electronic remittance advice. It adds to the efficiency of the entire billing system and makes it as speedy as possible. 

Before this system became popular amongst medical practitioners, it was the EOBs that would do the job. They made the entire process extremely slow and mostly filled with errors and mistakes. This would further make the payments delayed, hampering the performance of the entire system. 

One major reason why EOBs made the whole system so slow was that it was done on paper. Everything had to be written and documented. It would waste paper, time, and energy. The medical practitioners, or their teams, had to go all the way to the banks in order to deposit the checks. Also, they had to keep the transaction process on track to make things work for themselves. 

Software Automation

Healthcare billing has become error-free, thanks to the software automation associated with it now. With the reduction of manual tasks, it has definitely become possible to make things get done on their own. With the automatic entry of data through electronic remittance advice, automation makes things error-free. It adds a lot of ease and reliability to the entire Insurance claim processing process. 

Understanding of Denials

With the EOBs doing the whole work in terms of offering denial letters to the medical practitioners, the letter composers had to create customized letters for all the clients. Writing each denial letter individually would take a lot of time for the marketing professionals to do the work. At times, it would also lead to extended delays in the provision of denial letters to medical practitioners. 

However, with ERAs, denial letters have become highly standardized. As the process becomes faster, medical practitioners can put up their appeal letters soon enough and get their claims approved. 

No Need For Excessive Storage

The electronic remittance advice has helped in reducing the amount of paper that the medical practitioners’ teams had to deal with. Now, the front desk of the medical administrator is free of the excessive paper load. With all the records becoming automotive and electronic, there is no need to take care of huge piles of paper anymore. 

Ease Of Search

With the insurance and patient data turning digital, looking for a part of some information has become really easy. Rather than going through a massive chunk of paper load, the finder simply has to push a few buttons on the keyboard and he is able to get the required information within minutes. Hence, it has made things pretty convenient for everyone. 

Electronic remittance advice has surely revolutionized the world of medical billing. It has made things super fast, efficient, and secure. The system comes with analytics tools now, which makes it possible for medical billing procedures to be highly systemized and structured.

Medical billing is a tough task and finding the right codes to make claims is even tough. This is why most healthcare practitioners opt for outsourced billing services when it comes to putting forward their claims. If you are also looking for the best medical billing company that will aid you in this regard, reach out to Zee Medical Billing and book your appointment at ​​+1 224-999-6997