Author Topic: Former Clients  (Read 2786 times)

williamportor

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Former Clients
« on: February 25, 2016, 01:38:25 PM »
Hello-

Just looking for opinions here. I've signed up and billed for 12 clients in the two and a half years since I started in the business, seven are still with me, the other five left for a variety of reasons, i.e. retired, business slowed and did the billing themselves, just wanted me for a short time to clean up a billing mess etc. all were happy with my work. My question is: Is it a good idea to stay in contact with my former clients, in the hopes they may wish to use my services again, or should I forget them, and continue to market for new clients?

Michele

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Re: Former Clients
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2016, 10:49:02 PM »
There is nothing wrong with dropping an occasional note to them.  You never know, they may decide to come back, or they may refer you to someone else!  I wouldn't put a lot of effort into it, but I would keep the communication open.
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RichardP

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Re: Former Clients
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2016, 05:43:00 PM »
A billing story for the ICD-10 era.

We are in California.  We had a client who did complicated medicine, so - complicated billing (in-house lab, radiology, heart monitoring, etc).  He was looking to increase his patient load and so signed up for a Medi/Medi Dual Eligibles pilot program that the State of California was beginning.  We had decided to drop him as a client because of this (we do as little Medicaid as possible), but he dropped us first.  Another doctor, who did not do complicated medicine, had convinced him to go with a billing co. that shipped the work offshore - and charged about half of what we charged.

We have kept in touch with him casually over time.  About a year after he left us he was complaining that his patient load had gone up, but his income had gone down 30%.  He was losing far more than he had ever paid us, because overseas billers don't know how to bill for complicated medicine so that it actually gets paid.

Prior to ICD-10 kicking in we casually asked him if he knew all he needed to know or if he would like some help.  Seems he was on his 3rd billing company since he left us, and had signed up with the Athena Health EMR - who also ships work overseas.  He hired us to audit his set-up at Athena Health to make certain that everything was ICD-10 ready.  We did that.  And discovered huge dollar amounts of write-offs that he "knew nothing about" because nobody at his current billing company brought it to his attention.  We know how to bill complicated medicine so that it actually gets paid, so we never did have huge amounts of write offs for him.  But those we did have, we coordinated closely with him about before they were ever written off.

Long story short, he has hired us to monitor his billing on an ongoing basis.  He ended up not participating in the California Medi/Medi Dual Eligibles program, so the Medicaid issue is non-existant.

In the EMR / ICD-10 era, the provider puts all the billing code data into the software (something we used to do).  And Athena Health will not let anyone else but them do the billing.  If you want to use their EMR, you must let them do your billing (plus, payment gets sent to Athena; they take their cut, and send on to the doctor what they consider is his cut.  :o  So, we are getting consulting fees for monitoring his account, making certain all work done has been entered into the EMR, entered properly, and the diagnosis codes are connected to procedure codes in a descending order of importance (payment from Medicare and some commercial insurances varies for the same procedure code, depending on what diagnosis code is connected first).  We also do follow-up on rejections, etc, and bill the patients for their portion of the bill.  Provider is referring us to four other providers he knows who also use Athena Health.

For providers who have migrated to EMRs, and who input the codes themselves, this seems to be the new face of our billing effort.  For those looking for new business, you might keep this story in mind.  With change being forced upon the billing community, it helps to remember these two things:

- you can't ride a camel in exactly the same way that you ride a pony.  But, if you adjust appropriately, you can still ride.

- you never know when your level of expertise will be remembered by a former client and he will turn again to you to help him out.

It pays to not turn your back completely on former clients unless it is necessary (provider wanted to do fraud, etc.)

williamportor

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Re: Former Clients
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2016, 09:57:31 AM »
Thank You for the input everyone.  :)

CharleneF

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Re: Former Clients
« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2016, 06:00:40 PM »
A billing story for the ICD-10 era.

We are in California.  We had a client who did complicated medicine, so - complicated billing (in-house lab, radiology, heart monitoring, etc).  He was looking to increase his patient load and so signed up for a Medi/Medi Dual Eligibles pilot program that the State of California was beginning.  We had decided to drop him as a client because of this (we do as little Medicaid as possible), but he dropped us first.  Another doctor, who did not do complicated medicine, had convinced him to go with a billing co. that shipped the work offshore - and charged about half of what we charged.

We have kept in touch with him casually over time.  About a year after he left us he was complaining that his patient load had gone up, but his income had gone down 30%.  He was losing far more than he had ever paid us, because overseas billers don't know how to bill for complicated medicine so that it actually gets paid.

Prior to ICD-10 kicking in we casually asked him if he knew all he needed to know or if he would like some help.  Seems he was on his 3rd billing company since he left us, and had signed up with the Athena Health EMR - who also ships work overseas.  He hired us to audit his set-up at Athena Health to make certain that everything was ICD-10 ready.  We did that.  And discovered huge dollar amounts of write-offs that he "knew nothing about" because nobody at his current billing company brought it to his attention.  We know how to bill complicated medicine so that it actually gets paid, so we never did have huge amounts of write offs for him.  But those we did have, we coordinated closely with him about before they were ever written off.

Long story short, he has hired us to monitor his billing on an ongoing basis.  He ended up not participating in the California Medi/Medi Dual Eligibles program, so the Medicaid issue is non-existant.

In the EMR / ICD-10 era, the provider puts all the billing code data into the software (something we used to do).  And Athena Health will not let anyone else but them do the billing.  If you want to use their EMR, you must let them do your billing (plus, payment gets sent to Athena; they take their cut, and send on to the doctor what they consider is his cut.  :o  So, we are getting consulting fees for monitoring his account, making certain all work done has been entered into the EMR, entered properly, and the diagnosis codes are connected to procedure codes in a descending order of importance (payment from Medicare and some commercial insurances varies for the same procedure code, depending on what diagnosis code is connected first).  We also do follow-up on rejections, etc, and bill the patients for their portion of the bill.  Provider is referring us to four other providers he knows who also use Athena Health.

For providers who have migrated to EMRs, and who input the codes themselves, this seems to be the new face of our billing effort.  For those looking for new business, you might keep this story in mind.  With change being forced upon the billing community, it helps to remember these two things:

- you can't ride a camel in exactly the same way that you ride a pony.  But, if you adjust appropriately, you can still ride.

- you never know when your level of expertise will be remembered by a former client and he will turn again to you to help him out.

It pays to not turn your back completely on former clients unless it is necessary (provider wanted to do fraud, etc.)


RichardP - How do you charge a client or What should you charge a client to audit and/or monitoring their billing? I have a client that wants me to do this for them but I'm not sure how to charge. Any help would be greatly appreciated .

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Re: Former Clients
« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2016, 06:00:40 PM »