Speaker 1: Hey guys, Jasmine here with IPS, helping you to improve the delivery of patient care by alleviating the stress from the business side of health care. Today we're talking about basic information, but I get this question a lot, interestingly enough, especially for people that are very new to health care or specifically new to running or operating their own practices. What is the difference between medical billing and revenue cycle management, and is there really a difference? So very simply, medical billing has been a term that's been around for way longer than revenue cycle management, though there's really nothing that's new. What do I mean by that? So RCM is basically the financial process in its entirety of operating a health care facility and seeing patients from the start of their care, from inception, registration, all the way through billing and reconciling a claim, and posting those payments, and then sending out patient statements. So the entire process, we would consider that entire process and then potentially the end the patient then coming back for additional visits or for follow-up visits. That is what we would consider a revenue cycle. So it is the cycle in which payment and money moves through your business, right? So the way that you render services and then issue those services for payment either from patient or through an insurance carrier, and then eventually receive the payment for those services and work through reconciling and being able to get those payments paid. So that's the entire, in its entirety, the financial arm of your health care organization is referred to as a revenue cycle, and the management of that cycle is what we call revenue cycle management. So RCM is usually what it's referred to as for short. Does, do companies or can companies truly be full RCM when they're fully, when they're outsourced? The truth is, yes and no. Why do I say that? So there are companies out there that truly will be able to do things like scheduling for you, and, and pre-authorizations, and patient registration, and, and also process, interim process your payments, excuse me, your charges for services, rent, obviously then take over the rest of the process. So yes, they can potentially be revenue cycle management companies. Likely what you find is a company that is RCM centric, a company that is focused on your entire revenue cycle, but really what they provide is more consulting as it relates to the patient registration and authorization process and so on. Here at IPS, we are a medical billing company primarily, and we do support the entire revenue cycle. So we can provide training and so on, all of the things that relate to financial strength of the business. So that answers the question for RCM. So then what is medical billing? Medical billing, if you think of the entire cycle that I just broke out for you, medical billing is the portion after the services are rendered, when the provider has entered, completed their notes and entered their services that are prepared for billing, the scrubbing of that claim and preparation of that claim and ensuring proper coding of that claim is likely part of the medical billing definition. Medical billing, that is the coding for those services, then transmission of that claim to carrier, billing of those services to the third party, reconciling and posting those payments, all of those things that go into processing of that healthcare claim, that is what we would consider medical billing. All the way to the part that likely is also considered patient billing, but it is usually wrapped into or encompasses what the services are that medical billing companies provide. So what you find with a lot of revenue cycle management or medical billing companies is they will take your services after you put your services into the software, help to ensure that your coding is accurate, scrub your claim and then transmit those to insurance companies and follow through all the way up until the patient is billed and fees are collected. They usually, most medical billing or revenue cycle management companies do not do the portion of authorizations fully, meaning on their own, without any of your support and patient registration and scheduling. That's usually, that portion kind of more at the top of the cycle as we consider it, where the patient is first getting started with services, that is usually something that is done in house or within your health care organization. So again, medical billing is a portion of the revenue cycle. Revenue cycle is the financial arm in its entirety. I hope that you found that helpful. 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