When to Stop Managing Restoration Insurance Billing In-House and Outsource

When your restoration company is growing, it puts pressure on your restoration insurance billing department. What was once a successful claims management process can begin to fall apart under the weight. As you’re taking on bigger and more frequent water damage jobs, your billing team may fall behind, make mistakes, or accidentally let invoices fall through the cracks. When this happens, you have a few options: you can revamp your in-house processes, or you can explore outsourcing restoration insurance billing. 

At some point, continuing to manage restoration claims in-house costs more than it saves. But how do you know when your company has reached that point? At One Claim Solution, we work with restoration contractors to help them reach their full claims success potential. Outsourcing restoration insurance billing isn’t the answer for every struggling contractor, but it is the answer for some. Here are some of the signs we’ve seen that indicate it may be time to think about outsourcing your company’s claims billing. 

Signs That You Should Consider Outsourcing Restoration Insurance Billing Now

Your Team Is Stretched Too Thin

There’s a lot that goes into claims management: submitting claims, managing documentation, communicating with adjusters, managing incoming payments, and more. That all adds up. Is your claims team feeling overwhelmed? Do you have invoices sitting unsubmitted because of a large backlog? Are you relying on one person who “knows how everything works” to keep everything moving? Overworking a stressed-out billing team isn’t viable, especially not long-term. If the workload has grown bigger than your staff can handle, it leads to worse claims results. Morale will begin to drop, and turnover will likely increase. If you’re seeing your restoration insurance billing team stretched too thin, it’s time to start exploring outsourcing options. 

Cash Flow Is Suffering

You can tell a lot about the health of your company’s finances by looking at your cash flow. If your average days to payment is getting higher, or if you’re constantly waiting on insurance checks to cover expenses, that’s a sign that how you are currently managing claims in-house isn’t working.

Outsourcing claims management to a specialized insurance billing team can help reverse your cash flow challenges. A partner like One Claim Solution has established, scalable systems for taking care of claims management and negotiation. When you pick the right claims management team, you’ll see your days to payment decrease and your claims payouts increase, providing you with the healthy cash flow your restoration company needs to grow and succeed.

Your Claims Backlog is Long Even During Slow Seasons

Because of the nature of restoration work, it’s normal for there to be workflow ups and downs that fluctuate with seasons, weather events, and natural disasters in your area. It’s somewhat understandable if your claims billing falls behind during busy seasons. But if you notice that your open and unresolved claims backlog is remaining long even during slower periods, that’s a sign that how you’re managing insurance billing isn’t working and isn’t viable long term, especially if you have any goals of growing your business.

Outsourcing restoration insurance billing to a specialized team can help you both get back on track and prevent falling behind in the future. At a claims management company like One Claim Solutions, we handle a large volume of claims. That large claims volume means that workload fluctuations are typically easily absorbed in a way that’s just not possible when you’re handling a smaller volume of restoration claims in-house. When a big storm comes around, you won’t have to worry about feeling pressure to settle claims for less, just for the sake of getting through your backlog and keeping cash incoming. When someone else takes care of that for you, you can relax knowing that your billing will continue to be handled with care, and cash will continue to come in without having to make unnecessary concessions, regardless of how busy you are..

You Struggle to Collect and Maintain Claims Data

A healthy claims process depends on visibility. You should always know what claims are pending, what ones need follow-up, and what ones have been paid. You should have a good understanding of your average number of days to payment, and what services your company provides are the most profitable.

When you’re managing everything internally and dealing with the stress of a growing company, it’s easy for keeping track of data like this to get lost in the shuffle. When you’re overwhelmed, other priorities might feel more important and urgent than tracking claims data and performance. But without clear data, your business can’t identify trends or make informed decisions.

A good external restoration insurance billing team will give you access to that data as a part of their services. For example, at One Claim Solution, all of our contractors get access to our Contractor Portal, which allows them to check analytics, claims statuses, and claim history all in one place. This kind of visibility can be invaluable for your restoration company.

The Opportunity Cost of Keeping Claims Billing In-House When It isn’t Working

Many restoration contractors hesitate to outsource claims management because they view it as an expense. It’s true on some level: outsourcing restoration insurance billing does cost money. But the reality is that continuing to manage claims internally when your system is overloaded often costs far more when you consider the opportunity cost. All of that scrambling and struggling to catch up leads to mistakes and puts pressure on your team to accept lower claims payouts, just for the sake of getting a claim closed.

Plus, claims billing can be complicated. Insurers are always evolving tactics, and it can be hard to keep up and adjust your billing strategies internally when you’re also juggling every other part of your restoration business at the same time. When you outsource to a specialized insurance billing team like One Claim Solution, you benefit from our expertise. Claims billing is what we do all day, every day. We pay attention to trends we’re seeing arise with certain providers or industry-wide, and then we adjust our claims strategies accordingly, all for the benefit of our contractors.

At OCS, we understand the cost of outsourcing restoration insurance billing is a hurdle that is front of mind for many restoration contractors exploring the option. Our goal is always to increase our contractors’ collections, even after our fee is taken out. Before we onboard new clients, we will take a look at your company’s claims billing to assess how you’re doing. If we don’t think we can promise a net increase to your collections, we will tell you. It’s that simple.

Outsourcing Restoration Insurance Billing to the Right Company

If you feel like you’ve hit a ceiling with your internal claims team, outsourcing may be the next step in your company’s growth. One Claim Solution was built to help restoration contractors like you get paid faster, negotiate better, and reduce the administrative load that slows so many restoration businesses down. If you’re ready to simplify your claims process and improve your cash flow, reach out to One Claim Solution today to learn how outsourcing can help your business scale smarter and faster.