Melissa, Allscripts Tackle Medical Billing Problem

Customer data giant Melissa is teaming up with healthcare IT firm Allscripts in a bid to take some of the headaches out of medical billing for doctors.

Melissa and Allscripts on Thursday announced a “continuing partnership” that will offer the Melissa Address Validation system within Allscripts’ software platform, which is designed for standalone physician practices.

The aim of the partnership is to tackle a problem that can trigger costly delays in billing and reimbursement for many physician practices, namely address information for patients that is either incorrect or not taken down in the first place.

If a mistake is made in taking down a patient’s address, it can result in a cascading series of errors, forcing paperwork to be reprocessed at the expense of other work and triggering an increase in postage and process costs “if correspondence, such as a billing statement, has to be corrected and re-sent,” the firms noted in a press release on their new initiative.

“Valid patient addresses and contact data are crucial for today’s healthcare industry, particularly during a pandemic. For example, with the correct contact information, practice staff can proactively reach out to triage patients prior to appointments and even explore alternatives to face-to-face visits,” Leah Jones, senior vice president of Allscripts Ambulatory, said in the press release. “This level of insight promotes a positive patient experience and advances a streamlined practice mentality that saves time, money, resources, and perhaps lives in the process.”

However, such billing errors can now be prevented by deploying the Melissa address verification system in the “registration area” of Allscripts practice management platform, the companies noted.

As medical billing staff enter a patient’s address, a green indicator light flashes on when it passes muster with the Melissa address verification system.

“Accurate address data is a significant contributor to any organization’s bottom line, but when it comes to patient data, gaps or mistakes in information can lead not only to delayed or undeliverable billing but also to compliance issues,” said Bud Walker, vice president of enterprise sales and strategy at Melissa. “Through our Allscripts integration, Practice Financial Platform users have address verification functionality at their fingertips to keep the practice running smoothly with minimal effort so staff can focus on the patient.”