Medical Billing Forum

Payments => Insurance Payments => : PsychBiller September 19, 2016, 04:59:45 PM

: PO Box as a "pay-to" address
: PsychBiller September 19, 2016, 04:59:45 PM

We are moving into a new office suite.  However, the local post office will not allow a cluster box, or individual suite mailboxes.  They will allow one mailbox for the entire building (7 suites).

I was going to go ahead and just get a PO Box for our mail delivery, but seem to think that I read somewhere that I couldn't have a PO Box as a "pay-to" address. 

Please can anyone offer me any guidance on this one. Thanks!
: Re: PO Box as a "pay-to" address
: kristin September 19, 2016, 10:19:48 PM
That is correct(at least for Medicare), see this this link:

https://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNMattersArticles/downloads/SE1245.pdf
: Re: PO Box as a "pay-to" address
: Michele September 19, 2016, 10:44:16 PM

We are moving into a new office suite.  However, the local post office will not allow a cluster box, or individual suite mailboxes.  They will allow one mailbox for the entire building (7 suites).

I was going to go ahead and just get a PO Box for our mail delivery, but seem to think that I read somewhere that I couldn't have a PO Box as a "pay-to" address. 

Please can anyone offer me any guidance on this one. Thanks!

SO are they saying that mail for all 7 suites goes into one box and then who separates it??  As a tenant this would not be ok with me.  What about privacy laws?  This just seems bizarre.
: Re: PO Box as a "pay-to" address
: PMRNC September 20, 2016, 11:36:28 PM
Your NPI must be a physical address and also must match the IRS record.

SO are they saying that mail for all 7 suites goes into one box and then who separates it??  As a tenant this would not be ok with me.  What about privacy laws?  This just seems bizarre.

Why is that bizarre?
: Re: PO Box as a "pay-to" address
: kristin September 20, 2016, 11:50:30 PM
I think it is bizarre also. To have seven suites in a building all having their mail dropped into a common box is something I have never seen/heard of. You could have people accidentally grabbing your mail and opening it, and seeing things they shouldn't. And not just if everyone in the building is a doctor...what about lawyers, accountants, etc? I would think all sorts of privacy issues could potentially be violated with this set-up.
: Re: PO Box as a "pay-to" address
: Michele September 21, 2016, 12:03:55 AM
I think it is bizarre also. To have seven suites in a building all having their mail dropped into a common box is something I have never seen/heard of. You could have people accidentally grabbing your mail and opening it, and seeing things they shouldn't. And not just if everyone in the building is a doctor...what about lawyers, accountants, etc? I would think all sorts of privacy issues could potentially be violated with this set-up.

Exactly.  A building with seven suites can be a medical office, lawyer, accountant, etc.  All different lines of business.  I know I personally would not be ok with my mail being dropped into a common box with 6 other completely independent businesses.  They don't need to see what mail I receive and I don't want to see theirs. 
: Re: PO Box as a "pay-to" address
: Ypmb16 January 23, 2017, 09:17:52 PM
Actually you can use a PO BOX as a pay to address. However, this is depended upon what billing software you use, we noticed. For example, if you use Office Ally, there are forms you have to complete to use a PO BOX. We moved to Ability, EASE All Payer software and they have a built in place in the additional fields section of the claim forms where we enter the PO Boxes for our clients. That works without issue. If you are paper billing, I do not believe that you can use a PO BOX. So it just depends on the format of the software and the forms. We have 3 clients right now that we send the payments to their PO BOXES, using the EASE All Payer billing software features. However, we were not able to do this before. Bottom line - check with your billing software vendor.
: Re: PO Box as a "pay-to" address
: Michele January 24, 2017, 11:49:17 AM
Medicare does not allow providers to use a PO Box for their correspondence address.