Over the years, we have lost clients and gained clients. Whether losing or gaining clients, there is always a transfer of data involved - from the old biller to the new biller. We have recently lost a couple of clients to a concierge medicine company. That freed us up to take on a couple of clients who have been wanting us to take them on for a while. So I have been importing data for the incoming clients and exporting data for the departing clients.
Which raised the following question in my mind: is there a legal requirement for the minimum data the old billing company must pass to the new billing company? And, if so, where would such a legal requirement be found in a particular state? I know the standard response can be "check with your local Healthcare Attorney". I'm just wondering if anybody here has had any experience with the legal requirments for the minimum requirement for data transfer.
[edit: Just to be clear, I'm talking about when the billing company is using their own billing software on their own servers. Obviously, if the billing company is dialing into the doctor's own server, this question is moot.]
We usually pass the patient demographics and insurance and work the old balances for four or five months and then pass a total balance owed for each patient to the new billing company. That is what we usually receive from a new client coming to us also - but sometimes we get nothing and the old billing company refuses to give us anything - including patient demographics. So we build our database from scratch as the patients are seen by the doctor. I've often wondered if that refusal to provide data is legal, and now I've remembered to ask about it.
I know that we've discussed here that some of the cloud companies flat out claim that they own all of the data on their servers and that they will not give it to the doctors if asked. I'm guessing that the legal authority for them to do that would be basically the same authority for a billing company to assert ownership of the doctor's data?? Any thoughts?