Billing Buddies ®

Statements = Marketing

This video explains how sending regular statements promotes your business and equates to marketing.

Profitability and a Compliance Plan

Learn how a Compliance Plan and make your office more profitable.

Getting a Compliance Plan

This podcasts discusses the arrest done last week of 6 chiropractors from Minnesota and what they may have done to prevent the crime they committed.  The podcast also discusses what all healthcare providers could do to protect themselves.

Fee Schedules and Uniform Billing

This is the time of year everyone starts thinking about revamping their lives and business for the upcoming New Year.   One of those items that gets on the "TDL" is increasing fees. Many clinics haven't changed their fees in years and the issue with that is the cost of living increases and so should the clinics fees.

 

The UCR and insurance fee schedules are determined by the average fee for each service. If every office kept the same fees year after year, it would pull down these averages.   This could definitely be an issue with fees staying the same over years.

 

So, how do you manage increasing your fees?   There are a couple of methods. One is charging 1.5 to 2 times the Medicare fee schedule. You can easily get the fee schedule for your codes for free at www.cms.gov.   Another method is to increase them according to the http://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/. Yet finally, another way to increase them is a certain percentage increase over the fee schedule that has been in place.

 

 

Now that we have established fee schedules, this podcast would be lacking if we didn't discuss uniform billing practices. Uniform billing practices demand that providers charge insurance companies and patients alike. The only exception to this rule is a discount may be given to either party, insurance or patient, if the party pays at the time of service. Of course, this means, they have to pay at the time of service , not tomorrow or next week.   In addition, the discount should not be over 15% from the full rate otherwise it may be seen as an inducement.

 

Finally, the only other time that a discount may be given is if the clinic has a hardship policy in place and hardship has been determined be bank statements, pay stubs or tax returns.

Fee Splitting

Defining Fee Splitting and Percentage Billing - Authorities that Prohibit Percentage Agreements

Defining Billing Services

This podcast explains:

1)  What is a billing service?

2)  How much do they cost?

3)  How do you determine if a billing service is good?

Billing Contract versus Non-Contract Insurance

This podcast will explain how to save time and receive more money by implementing a policy to track contract insurances.

Medicare Advanced Beneficiary Notice (ABN)

Learn the Medicare requirements that are imposed on Medicare providers to complete the ABN form.  Also, find out how to get the latest form and rules from CMS.

Getting Proper Signatures to Bill

Many billers know that they need to put "Signature on File" in boxes 12 and 13 in order to bill and get paid from an insurance on the patient's behalf.  Unfortunately, the biller might not understand what they are attesting to and what their ignorance could implicate on the clinic.  Listen to this padcast and find out.