Medical Billing - Getting Your Software To You

Medical billing agencies take a lot of things for granted. They purchase a piece of DME software in order to do their daily billing and they expect everything to run perfectly. Well, in the real world, it isn't quite that simple. There is a lot of work that goes into putting out a piece of medical billing software. While we're not going to attempt to dive into this process in great detail, we're going to try to give you a decent idea of what goes into getting your DME software to you. In future installments, we'll cover this in more detail.

The first step in the process is actually deciding what is going to go into the software itself. This is usually determined by the owners of the company, but frequently, the programmers have a big say in the final product because they may know what is and what isn't possible. Just because management wants something doesn't mean it's going to be done.

The next step is to actually begin the design of the software itself. This involves specifications that are general as well as detailed. The software needs to be given an overall look to go along with the individual bells and whistles that it comes with.

After the software is designed, piece by piece, each section is given to a QA person to test. It is their job to make sure that the section of the software that they are testing works the way it is supposed to, whether it be billing, printing forms, updating prices or whatever. Because medical billing software is so complex, a team of QA people are usually assigned to test it.

If any bugs are found in the software through testing, the QA people send the software back to the programmers. This process continues until the software is found to be bug free.

The software is then given to the support people to learn. The reason for this is because they are the ones who are going to be taking calls from customers who have problems. So it is their responsibility to learn every inch of the software that they can.

Finally, after everything is completed, the manuals are written by the QA people or tech writers, depending on how the company is structured. These are the manuals that are distributed to the medical billing companies who buy the software.

When all of that is done, the software is then packaged in a nice neat and pretty box. This box is made by the graphic artists team. If you don't think presentation is important, think again. Presentation is almost everything in the business world.

After the software is packaged, it is then given to the sales people to distribute. These people usually have leads to companies looking for medical billing software. That's where they start.

It's a very long process from start to finish. So when you finally do get your DME software, try to understand that a lot of hard work went into getting it to you.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Medical Billing