Getting paid is key to medical success

Perhaps no area of medicine will change as much in the next five years as payment processing, according to a new McKinsey report. (Illustration from the cover of the report.)

Right now a key difference between a practice's success or failure is having an assistant who can work the system and get you paid. Tossing the bills to a billing company isn't good enough.

That's because, unlike as in credit card processing, there's always someone looking over your shoulder. Getting charges accepted, and paid, is a skill set which goes far outside medicine.

So what would you like to see in a new medical billing system? What's the best way to keep fraud out but keep money flowing in? And how much control of your own billing system are you willing to give up for the benefits?

Discuss, and we'll get this beat started.