When confronted with a choice between in-house based Medical Billing System and a web-based or hosted Medical Billing System system, which might happen to be the better choice for you and your practice?

Current economic hardship being what it is means more and more medical practitioners are finding themselves facing this critical question that needs a decision.

For starters, it is a good idea to have clarity on the understanding of both terms. In-house based Medical Billing systems where the application is based at the medical practitioner’s site, is the most popular. On the other hand a ASP or web-based Medical Billing system as the name suggests is hosted by a third party somewhere on the web.

Actually both systems have their pros and cons which a medical practitioner should closely examine in order to make an informed decision.

There is no question that you will always have much more control of things with a in-house based Medical Billing system. It is faster and you do not have to rely entirely on the Web to access your practice billing data. Suffice to say there is a price to pay and it starts with a generally higher upfront investment you will have to make to acquire the medical billing software outright. Moreover remote access to your Medical Billing System data when you are away from the practice is limited and generally a little complex than the case would be with a web based system.

On the other hand, a web based medical billing software means that your upfront costs reduce dramatically. Not only for the initial setup but also in terms of maintenance since the IT professionals belonging to the hosting vendor are obligated to maintain it and you should have no costs in that regard. Not to mention the online back-up service that is done automatically for you. And then you can always access your data from anywhere in the world as long as you have an Internet connection which has to be one of the greatest pluses a web based system has.

But in this greatest strength also lies its major weakness. And that is the fact that your access is totally dependant on an internet connection meaning that access in certain areas and under certain conditions will just not be possible.

Then there are the usual risks that go with web based systems. For instance your data could end up being completely inaccessible in the event that the online company hosting it goes belly up. Or your have cloud outages.

All these aspects have to be considered and deliberated upon before you make a decision. It will depend a lot on your practice, what you want to do with it and of course your medical billing software budget.

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