What is an Extended Business Office (EBO)?
Businesses seeking accounts receivable solutions often run into the extended business office (EBO) option and wonder what it means. An EBO is simply an extension of your business office, with a team who will develop processes to meet your business goals. They’ll also provide a more effective debt collection solution customized to your business style. This could involve creating an updated privacy policy or improved medical coding to better keep track of customer debt. An EBO provides revenue cycle best practices in areas ranging from ongoing billing and collections to denial management.
Why might you need an EBO?
Today’s hospitals and healthcare providers face many different challenges. Reimbursement has become more complicated. Constantly changing regulatory requirements have increased the administrative burden on both facilities and providers. Each year, healthcare providers lose a percentage of their net income because of system and software limitations, competing priorities, and limited staff. An effective EBO team can develop processes that will help meet your business goals while providing customized collection solutions. EBOs usually have advanced technology and vast healthcare experience, which can help your system recover claims and improve revenue cycles. An EBO offers best practices in all areas of the revenue cycle – from ongoing billing and collection to denied-claim resolution. In short, EBOs bridge the gap between healthcare practices and business office management.
Menu of EBO services
EBO services usually include:
- Patient access: Verifying insurance, financial counseling, preparing, and issuing patient statements. EBOs relieve the provider’s office of these responsibilities, freeing up their staff for more central tasks.
- Insurance: Determining the extent of a patient’s benefits, recovering insurance balances (including government, charity processing, and workers’ compensation reimbursement), resolving denied claims, monitoring payments, executing appeals, and claim to rebill. Effective EBOs will tailor these services for specific account aging and balance ranges.
- Self-pay accounts: Resolving private-payer accounts, monitoring bill repayment plans, motivating patients to stay current, alerting patients when a payment is due via calls or letters. Effective EBOs will represent their provider-clients in a way that’s both compassionate and professional in all communications with the patients.
Benefits of an EBO
What can you expect?
- Improved cash flow
- Reduced overhead expenses
- Fewer labor concerns
- Reduction in bad-debt expenses
- Billing transparency for patients
- Fewer inbound phone calls
- Reduced accounts receivable days
- Improved downstream impacts due to detailed reporting
- Higher revenue recovery rate
- Better resolution of denied claims
- Higher success rate for insurance claim appeals
- Improved customer relations
- Ensured compliance with all governmental regulations