A Guide to Build a Custom Medical Billing Software: Its Features, Costs, and Tech-Stack

By AppsDevPro | Sunday, October 15th, 2023

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Quick Blog Summary: Build a custom medical billing software to automate the complete process of your medical institution. A well-planned medical and makes it easier to keep track of every payment transaction, medical claim, and billing. Here is a complete blog to learn the cost to build a custom medical billing software, its features, tech stack, and more.

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How to build a custom medical billing software and how much does it cost to create a custom billing software? 

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, custom medical billing software has emerged as a crucial asset. Whether you’re a hospital, a solo practitioner, a corner pharmacy, or an insurance company, this software revolutionizes the way you manage payment information, process medical claims, and navigate the complex world of healthcare finances.

“In fact, the statistics say that the global healthcare industry is expected to hit $665.37 billion in value by 2028. In fact, alone the US national healthcare expenditure is expected to take a steep jump from $4.3 trillion in 2021 to $6.2 trillion by 2028.

That’s not all! With the projection of spending an average of $1.6 billion by users in 2027, it’s time for businesses to look for smart medical billion solutions that help them streamline the billing process and cut down the risk of costly errors. 

Revenue in the Health Care market

Image Source: statista

These statistics clearly portray the pressing need for cost-effective and efficient custom medical billing software that facilitates easy billing and streamline the processing of operation. 

But before you make a decision to build a custom medical billing software, the app development cost is the major consideration for healthcare providers looking for a smart solution to automate the billing process. 

Whether you are a small clinic or a multi-specialty hospital, the expenses will be a pressing concern to make an informed decision. 

Here in this blog, we have covered everything that majorly goes into the financial planning of creating a custom medical billing software.

Why There Is An Urgent Need to Build Custom Medical Billing Software?

In healthcare, off-the-shelf software often falls short of meeting the industry’s unique needs and compliance standards. This is where custom medical billing software steps in. While it may require an initial investment, it’s tailored to your specific workflows and regulatory requirements.

The beauty of custom software lies in its flexibility. You can make updates and changes as needed, ensuring your system remains up-to-date without waiting for new versions.

Here are the quick challenges that can be resolved by developing a custom medical billing software:

Challenges Solved with medical billing software

Image Source: altexsoft

In essence, custom medical billing software is like a personalized toolkit. You select the features that align perfectly with your organization’s needs, making it a justified expense for achieving efficiency, compliance, and readiness for the future.

Read More: How mHealth Applications Are Changing the Healthcare Industry?

How Does Modern Custom Medical Billing Software Work?

Modern custom medical billing software streamlines the complex process of medical billing, making it efficient, accurate, and tailored to the specific needs of healthcare providers. 

Here’s a breakdown of how it typically works:

Step 1: Patient Data Input:

Patients’ demographic and insurance information, along with details of the services received and associated codes (CPT and ICD-10), are input into the system. This can be done manually or integrated directly from Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems.

Step 2: Superbill Generation:

The software generates a comprehensive superbill that compiles all the provided services, aligned with CPT codes for procedures and ICD-10 codes for diagnoses.

Step 3: Insurance Verification:

The software interfaces with insurance databases to validate patient insurance information, coverage details, and benefits, ensuring accuracy in claims processing.

Step 4: Claim Preparation:

Based on the superbill, the software creates individual claims for each service, considering the specific requirements of the patient’s insurance plan. It aligns the services with the appropriate codes.

Step 5: Claims Submission:

The claims are electronically submitted to clearinghouses, ensuring they meet the standard EDI 837 format accepted by insurance companies. The integration allows for seamless transmission.

Step 6: Clearinghouse Processing:

Clearinghouses validate and format the claims according to industry standards and forward them to respective insurance companies for processing.

Step 7: Insurance Adjudication:

The insurance company processes the claims, reviewing them for accuracy and adherence to policy. They approve or deny claims and communicate the results.

Step 8: Payment Posting:

Upon approval, payment details are recorded in the system, updating the patient’s financial records and generating invoices.

Step 9: Denial Management:

If a claim is denied, the software identifies the reasons and facilitates necessary corrections and resubmission, maximizing the likelihood of approval.

Step 10: Reporting and Analysis:

The software generates comprehensive reports, providing insights into revenue cycles, claim status, payment trends, and overall practice performance. This data aids in optimizing billing processes and improving revenue collection.

Modern custom medical billing software is specifically tailored to the healthcare provider’s specific workflows and requirements. By hiring a full-stack developer in India, you can easily customize the backend and front end of the app using the potential language.

The rightly planned application helps you optimize the management of the revenue cycle, reduces administrative burden, minimizes the risk of errors, and ultimately leads to improved financial health of your healthcare organization. 

The overall healthcare industry is expected to make approx $665 billion in revenue and if you are also looking to become a part of this thriving industry then click here to hire an Android app developer in India at the lowest hourly cost. 

Build a Custom Medical Billing Software: Understanding the Key Features 

Medical Billing software features

Image Source: dreamsoft4u

Building a custom medical billing software involves carefully considering key features that cater to the unique needs of healthcare providers and streamline the billing process. Here are the essential features to consider:

  • Patient Information Management: Capture and manage detailed patient demographic data, insurance information, contact details, and medical history for accurate billing.
  • Superbill Generation: Automatically generate superbills from patient visits, detailing the services provided, associated CPT and ICD-10 codes, and any additional relevant information.
  • Claims Management: Create and manage claims based on superbill data, ensuring they comply with insurance standards and requirements for successful submission.
  • Insurance Verification and Eligibility: Integrate with insurance databases to verify patient insurance coverage, validate eligibility, and determine benefits to avoid claim rejections.
  • EDI Integration (837 Format): Integrate Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) capabilities to create claims in the standard 837 format for electronic submission to clearinghouses and insurer
  • Clearinghouse Integration: Integrate with clearinghouses to facilitate seamless transmission of claims, validation, formatting, and forwarding to respective insurance companies.
  • Billing Rules Engine: Implement a rules engine that automates billing procedures, ensuring compliance with billing rules, regulations, and specific payer policies.
  • Payment Processing and Posting: Streamline payment processing, automate the posting of payments and adjustments, and update patient accounts and billing records accordingly.
  • Denial Management: Track and manage denied claims, identify denial reasons, automate resubmissions, and provide workflows for appeals and corrections to maximize reimbursement.
  • Reporting and Analytics: Generate comprehensive reports and dashboards to provide insights into billing performance, revenue trends, claim status, denial rates, and key financial metrics for informed decision-making.
  • Integration with EHR/EMR: Seamlessly integrate with Electronic Health Records (EHR) or Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems to synchronize patient data, superbill generation, and ensure accuracy in billing.
  • Compliance and Security: Adhere to healthcare regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, ensuring data privacy, security, and compliance with industry standards.
  • Customizable Workflows: Allow customization of billing workflows to match the specific needs and processes of the healthcare organization, ensuring flexibility and efficiency.
  • Mobile Accessibility: Enable access to the software through mobile devices, facilitating on-the-go billing and access to patient information for healthcare professionals.

These are the few most crucial features to build custom medical billing software. Since the success of your app is majorly dependent upon the fact of how smoothly these features function, therefore, it is worth hiring a software developer in India with the right skills. The experts can easily turn on the game by pouring their skills into the development process and making your app work like a well-oiled machine. 

Read More: IoT in Healthcare App: Future, Benefits and Risks

So how to create a custom medical billing software for your medical organization that can reduce the complexity of the billing process…

How To Build a Custom Medical Billing Software: Key Steps to Consider At the Pre-Development Stage

When diving into the development of complex systems like medical billing software, careful planning in the pre-development stage is crucial. Since developing a mobile app is a costly yet time-consuming task, therefore, you need to This involves considering various business and development aspects:

business centered medical software

Image Source: upplabs

Step 1: Thorough Market Research

Conduct in-depth research and analysis of the healthcare industry, understanding the entities involved in the billing process. Interviews with potential customers, including hospital officials, individual practice owners, and even patients, can provide valuable insights into their routines and payment-related challenges.

Step 2: Understanding the Target Audience

To whom you are trying to target? What exactly you are offering is actually required in the organization? Customize your software to cater to healthcare institutions or individual practices. Every business has different client capacities, pricing policies, and specific requirements that need to be accounted for in the software. So you need to customize the app that easily addresses your business needs.

Step 3: Defining Functional Requirements

List out the essential features of medical billing software, considering the core functionalities we’ve previously discussed. Additionally, explore innovative features that can address specific issues more effectively based on your business goals and the type of software you intend to create.

Step 4: Platform Considerations

Determine the platforms your software will be available on, whether desktop, mobile (Android, iOS, or cross-platform), or a mobile-adapted web version. Considering the widespread use of mobile devices, a mobile version is almost indispensable.

Step 5: User-Friendly Design

Prioritize an intuitive design with easy navigation, accessible features, readable fonts, and pleasing colors. The aim is to make the software user-friendly and efficient.

Step 6: Security Measures

Given the sensitivity of healthcare data, ensure robust security measures, including auto-backups, data encryption, and compliance with data protection policies such as GDPR or HIPAA.

Step 7: Integration with Insurance Carriers

Plan for seamless integration with insurance carrier networks to simplify eligibility verification and claims processing.

Step 8: Storage Strategy

Decide on the types of information to be gathered and stored, as well as where to store it – whether on your servers or using secure, cloud-based storage solutions.

Step 9: Choosing the Development Team

To build a custom medical billing software, you need to opt for a reliable development team, whether in-house or an outsourcing agency, ensuring the team can support the project from inception to completion. To expedite the development process and make it go smoothly, it is worth outsourcing a team consisting of business analysts, app developers, UI/UX designers and app testers. The average cost to hire app developers in India ranges from $20 to $50 per hour.   

Step 10: Roadmap Creation

Define the tasks and set realistic time frames to create a clear roadmap for the software development journey.

Step 11: Budget Assessment

Evaluate available resources, estimate the development costs for the medical billing software, and determine if the budget is sufficient or if additional funding and investment opportunities need to be explored. The average cost to develop custom medical billing software will be ranging from $15,000 to $20,000 and more for each platform. 

Read more: If you are looking to develop a medical app that easily fits your needs and budget, then click here to know the cost to hire Indian app developers at AppsDevPro. 

By carefully considering these factors in the pre-development phase, you can pave the way to build a custom medical billing software that is specifically tailored to the unique requirements of the healthcare industry.

How To Secure Your Custom Medical Billing Software?

Securing your custom medical billing software is paramount, especially when dealing with sensitive patient information and financial transactions. While automated backups are crucial for efficient billing and transactions, the cost of any data loss can be significant. 

So, how can you ensure both automatic backups and robust app security?

1. Data Security

Patient data is highly sensitive. It’s imperative to ensure that databases housing private details are stored in a safe and secure manner. Access should be restricted and protected with strong authentication measures.

2. Storage Solutions – On-Premises or Cloud

Implement automated backups that allow data to be swiftly downloaded to on-premises storage devices or securely stored in the cloud, especially if you’re utilizing custom cloud-based medical billing software. Assess the pros and cons of each storage option based on your specific security requirements.

3. Data Encryption

Enhance security by encrypting all sensitive customer information stored within the database. Encryption ensures that it remains indecipherable even if data is accessed without the appropriate decryption key.

Custom medical billing software development gives you the unique advantage of tailoring a system that aligns precisely with your business goals and vision. By integrating robust security measures, automated backups, and data encryption into your custom software, you can fortify your system against potential threats and safeguard vital patient and financial data.

Tech Stack Required To Build a Custom Medical Billing Software

When it comes to developing robust medical billing software at AppsDevPro, choosing the right technology stack is crucial. Here’s our tailored technology stack for building efficient and reliable medical billing software:

Backend Development

For the backend, we recommend leveraging versatile and powerful frameworks like Node.js, Django, Symfony, or Ruby on Rails. These frameworks provide a solid foundation for developing the core functionality and logic of the application.

Frontend Development

In the realm of front-end development, we find Angular, Vue, and React to be the most effective technologies. These frameworks empower us to create intuitive and seamless user interfaces, ensuring a smooth user experience for both healthcare professionals and patients.

Data Storage

For efficient data storage and management, we advocate the use of Postgres or MySQL. These databases provide a robust foundation for storing critical data. Additionally, we utilize

  • Redis or MongoDB for cache to optimize performance.
  • ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) for effective log management, including storing, filtering, and analyzing logs.
  • S3 or Minio for secure and reliable storage of important documents, ensuring data integrity and accessibility.

Bug Tracking and Resolution

To ensure a bug-free and robust medical billing software, we recommend integrating Sentry. Sentry helps in catching and addressing bugs during the development phase, allowing us to deliver a polished and error-free application.

By implementing this customized technology stack, we can create cutting-edge medical billing software tailored to the unique needs and requirements of AppsDevPro, ensuring a high-quality, secure, and efficient solution.

But the central question is how much it costs to create a custom medical billing software.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Custom Medical Billing Software?

The cost of developing a custom medical billing software can vary significantly based on various factors, including the scope, complexity, features, technology stack, development team’s location, and more. Providing an exact cost is challenging without a detailed project analysis. 

However, here we provide a rough estimation based on market analysis and estimates:

  • Basic Medical Billing Software: A simple software with essential features like patient information management, billing, claims generation, and basic reporting could range from $10,000 to $15,000.
  • Mid-range Medical Billing Software: Software with additional features like integration with EHR/EMR systems, insurance eligibility verification, denial management, and enhanced reporting capabilities could range from $15,000 to $20,000.
  • Advanced Medical Billing Software: A comprehensive software with advanced features such as predictive analytics, machine learning capabilities, custom integrations with third-party services, and high-level security measures could cost upwards of $30,000 and beyond.

These are the rough estimations based on various surveys, therefore, it is worth consulting a software development firm, like AppsDevPro, to discuss your specific requirements in detail and receive a cost estimation based on your project’s unique needs. 

Conclusion: How Does AppsDevPro Can Help You Build a Custom Medical Billing Software?

In conclusion, selecting AppsDevPro for your medical billing software project is a strategic choice that merges expertise, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. With a strong reputation in healthcare software development, we tailor solutions to meet the distinct demands of healthcare providers. 

Our commitment to essential features, security, and industry compliance not only optimizes costs but also accelerates your software’s market entry. By hiring a mobile app developer in India with AppsDevPro, you will be assured of high-quality, secure, and cost-efficient medical billing solutions that are perfectly aligned with your healthcare needs.

For any project details and development costs, you can directly contact us!

FAQs

How To Create a Custom Medical Billing Software From Scratch?

Here’s a quick guide to building a medical billing app from scratch:

– Gather requirements and conduct market research.
– Choose the right technology stack and development approach.
– Develop the core features, ensuring compliance and security.
– Test rigorously, gather feedback, and iterate.
– Launch and continuously improve based on user feedback.

How To Integrate Custom Medical Billing Software Into An Existing EHR?

The simple way to integrate custom medical billing software into an existing ERP system is quite simple by following these few steps.

– Identify integration points and required data exchange.
– Use interoperability standards like HL7 or FHIR.
– Develop APIs for seamless communication between systems.
– Test integration thoroughly to ensure accuracy and reliability.

What Are the Top Trends for Developing a Custom Medical Billing App?

Here are the few top trends to integrate in medical billing app:

– Integration with AI for claims processing and denial prediction.
– Blockchain for secure and transparent health records.
– Telehealth integration for remote patient consultations.
– Cloud-based solutions for accessibility and scalability.
– Enhanced data analytics for actionable insights and decision-making.

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