ABOUT US

Multi-Medical started providing medical billing services back in 1977. Our level of service has not changed since day one. Customer service to our providers, their staff and their patients are our primary focus. The company continues to grow and utilize Kareo for their medical billing software; however, we connect to most electronic medical record systems to retrieve data.

This Kareo Success Article captured our past, present and future road map.

Terri Headshot 2021

Multi-Medical Specialties Billing, Inc.

Employees + Clients + Kareo = The Power of Teamwork

The story of Multi-Medical Specialties Billing is one of unexpected blessings, service and a dedication to good old-fashioned values. The company was founded in 1977 and hired Terri Newton in 1990. The founders met Terri and her husband, David, through Shriners and became fast friends. Everyone got along so well that when the owner was ready to retire, Terri and her husband, David, started making payments to buy out the business. Suddenly, the owner died. The Newtons were flabbergasted to learn that the owner had willed them the business. It has been a family-owned enterprise ever since, with David as co-owner/HR manager and Terri as co-owner/sales manager.“

In the early days, we were on a mainframe using Kredo as our billing program,” says Terri. “We were mostly serving anesthesia practices, who rarely have office staff. Our services included practically everything—secretarial work, cutting paychecks, taking the doctors’ cars for repairs, and even sometimes picking up their dry cleaning.”

 

Challenge: EHR Connectivity

By 2011, Multi-Medical needed more flexibility and connectivity than its stand-alone IBM AS400 could provide. “With practices moving to EHRs, we needed a web-based solution that could interface seamlessly with our clients’ systems. We did an internet search for the most user-friendly practice management system, so it wouldn’t be too hard for our staff and clients to learn. At the same time, the system had to offer an EHR that our clients could implement without too great an investment,” she explains.

 

Solution: Kareo End-to-End

Kareo saved the day for us,” Newton notes. “We found that its practice management software fit the bill in every way, so we adopted it across our entire company. We now require all of our clients to use it. All we have to do is forward them a Kareo link, and they download it on their desktop. Kareo Practice Management is so intuitive that we have to do very little training. If the client uses Kareo’s EHR, we simply point them to Kareo University and let them learn online.”

Multi-Medical now uses Kareo to manage the back office for clients, including patient demographics, services provided, charges, claim submissions, related follow-up, and receivables. “We send out patient statements showing our phone number and handle all related queries for the practice. When a patient calls, we set up credit card processing with Stripe. Patients can also make their own payments through the Kareo online patient portal. Payments post immediately. We also generate monthly reports, do soft collections, and forward accounts to an outside collection agency when necessary. By using Kareo, we can free up a practice from so much paperwork,” she says.

Multi-Medical assigns a dedicated team of three employees to every practice—a data entry clerk, a payments analyst, and an account rep to work on daily denials. “Clients know that we’ll be there for them 24/7, no matter what. We use a weekly worksheet to show each practice which accounts we need assistance on. This opens up lines of communication, so they can work through issues with us, providing things like retro authorizations, detailed diagnosis codes or updated NDC numbers.”

The team also does a full AR audit for clients every 30 days, checking claims status and payments, and following up with a phone call to each receivable. “We find that it’s just a few insurers who create most of the problems,” Terri explains. “By checking on them frequently, we pinpoint issues and resolve them early in the game.”

 

Result: Speed, Profitability, Reports

The Newtons saw immediate benefits after implementing Kareo. “We can now ramp up a new client or employee in half the time it took us before. We only need a few hours to set up a practice in Kareo, compared with three entire days with the old system. Thanks to Kareo, we have boosted patient collections by at least 30%.”

Other improvements have come from Kareo’s robust reporting capabilities, both externally and internally. “Our providers say that Kareo reports give them exactly what they need at-a-glance and are very easy to understand.

“We use Kareo reports in-house too,” she continues. “I have to know what employees are doing on a daily basis, and this can be difficult to track. At the time we adopted Kareo, it didn’t offer this tracking capability. So Kareo helped us develop a custom report, which I still use to this day. It’s a total game changer, because now I can see that one employee completed 10 patient calls on Tuesday, while another completed 40, and figure out why there’s a disparity. Every time we go to a Kareo Summit conference, other billing companies want to copy our report. I credit Kareo with being willing to collaborate with us to meet our needs.”

 

Results: Dramatic Expansion

Terri also believes that Kareo has contributed to the company’s phenomenal growth. “Because Kareo can manage a wide variety of specialties, we have been able to expand far beyond our original focus on anesthesia. We now handle 50 practices in 17 different specialties across four states—and we continue to add new clients. All of this is through word-of-mouth referrals. Without our partnership with Kareo, I don’t think we would have ever been blessed with this opportunity.”

 

Results: Intangibles that Matter

Newton stresses that corporate culture is what really makes the difference in a company’s success. “It’s all about communications, trust, and teamwork,” she says. “Many of our employees have been with us for decades - even through the hardest of times. That stability comes from loyalty that is earned anew every day. Another key factor is that we don’t have individual stars here. Instead, we nurture a strong sense of camaraderie. Everyone feels needed and important -- because they are.”

She feels a similar camaraderie with Kareo. “Having a dedicated Kareo account rep gives me great confidence. If I get a phone call from a client, I can reach out to our rep and know that we’ll have an answer right away. I appreciate that both Kareo and Multi-Medical care a lot about their clients and employees, and prove it with their actions. We’re all working together in this, to bring in as much revenue as possible for our clients and help them thrive. It’s the teamwork—at Multi-Medical and at Kareo—that makes this possible.”