So you want to enter the world of surgical assisting. In Australia we are very fortunate that the process is pretty straight forward. Of course there is the usual paperwork setup initially, but once this is done you are off and racing. But before you dive too deeply into the surgical assistant waters, you should give some serious thought about how you are going to get paid. This is where surgical assistant billing providers are important.
Surgical assisting in the private sector generally involves patients with private health insurance, work cover, 3rd party claims, or uninsured patients with upfront payments. In all of these scenarios it is common for surgical assistants to receive payments based on the item numbers used in the cases. This can add up to a very lucrative pay day. In most states in Australia it is standard practice for the assistant to use the services of a surgical assistant billing provider to ensure you receive your hard earned income. However, in some states, such as QLD, it is not uncommon for the Surgeon’s rooms to bill on your behalf. In a very well organised practice this can work quite well. However, it has been our experience that this is not always the case. Surgical rooms represent a very busy business. Certainly it is not an intentional misgiving, but the reality is that sometimes arranging your payment is not at the top of their priority list. This often leads to delays, and the situation of you having to chase up your pay at a later date. This can be an awkward experience.
All of the above can be negated by using a surgical assistant billing provider such as OpBill.
Surgical assistant billing providers will process your cases on your behalf and ensure that you receive your pay in a timely fashion. There are many different styles of billing providers on the market. Some require you to enter all of the patient information yourself (i.e home address, medicare numbers etc), while others will do this tedious work for you. Some will charge you up to 20% to find work and bill on your behalf. Certainly this is way too high.
OpBill has been created from the ground up to make surgical assistant billing a breeze.
All you need to do is down the free App (search ‘OpAlert’), take a photo of the hospital sticker and tell us which item numbers the surgeon selected. The rest of the work is over to us. You will automatically receive your payments into your bank account as soon as possible, and will receive monthly statements updating you. If there are any cases that need chasing up, we will communicate directly with you to ensure we can get this sorted for you.
OpBill is Australia’s lowest cost surgical assistant billing provider at only 1%, so you can rest easy knowing that you are holding onto more of your hard earned money.
We strongly encourage all surgical assistants to manage their own billing by partnering with a surgical assistant billing provider. OpBill makes this process easy and are here to help you navigate these waters.
