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Collecting EOB's and payments from your clients

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Michele:
I agree with your Linda.  We don't prefer to get the checks but we have found a couple (3 to be exact) where it does work well.  One the provider insisted.  The other was a provider who takes 4 months off every year to go south.  That really messes up things because he has his mail forwarded and some carriers (Medicare) won't forward.  The last was the dr who lost his sister and doesn't have a receptionist.  He just couldn't pull himself together and was losing the checks, not cashing them, not giving them to us.  This went on for 18-24 months and we decided to switch it.  It has worked out great, but again, it is not what we prefer.  All 3 are providers we have worked with for a long time and the relationship is very good. 

Michele

PMRNC:
Of course there are situations where this works fine, but the root of the problem is easier to correct than work around. For example, I had a client who's billing company fired him primarily for this reason, they were frustrated. My job was to hire him additional staff and to get him back on his feet In house.. He was a mega control freak and was the one to collect and open all mail, that is how he wanted it and nothing was going to change his mind. I worked with the billing staff as much as possible to get him to turn over this task to the staff. Finally we had to take more drastic errors which resulted in him receiving inaccurate reports, patient phone calls (upset because their statements were not reflecting balances) I had the billing staff take messages or let them speak with the provider himself. Of course this overwhelmed him and we finally sat down to discuss how his "control" was causing his practice to lose money, frustrate and alienate his staff, not to mention what it was doing to the practice reporting. He truly just believed cashing/depositing his checks meant the job was done. We had to sit him down and go over the process and educate him on it. After some education on this he gave up that control and was much happier with his deposits all ready for the bank and the staff having the EOB's or check copies to post..    The other billing company had tired of the power struggle so putting a bandaid on the actual problem is never usually the right choice, certainly it's a last ditch effort. DOCTORS need to be responsible and they NEED to understand the flow. When I do large office staff training we do job flow studies where the physicians actually spend time in the billing department learning the process and this really goes a long way into educating them in the right way to do things.

Linda Walker
PMRNC
www.billerswebsite.com

Michele:
I agree with you 100%.  I just wish that it were easier to 'teach' providers.  They are good at practicing medicine but many are not good at the paper end, cash flow, etc.  Sometimes I feel like I'm banging my head on a very thick cement wall!  All that gets me is a visit to the Dr.  :)

Michele

PMRNC:
I agree! the process can be very frustrating. MOST doctors when they are hit in the wallet learn quickly. I had one that was just plain "lazy" but when he seen that I was charging him for the FULL billed amount of the claim because he did not send me the EOB and when he took the patient's phone call when she got the bill for the balance, he quickly realized this wasn't going to work. I know this is awfully stereotypical to say, however doctors know two things: Medicine and Money <g>   ;D

PTBILLER:
Hi-You both have helped a lot in this daunting task!  Over the weekend, I sat down and made a work flow sheet that they can actually not only try to follow but hopefully try to reorganize.  I hate thinking about getting the checks here.  Too much of a pain to switch and I really don't want to be held responsible for it.  It's funny because you had mentioned "the other billing service getting frustrating and firing the provider".  I think that's what happened in this case (although I'm sure the service didn't tell them that).  They told them that they were too busy...kind of a lame excuse, if I do say so myself! ;D  Anyhow, hoping to get them to realize their work flow needs help.  Thanks again.  (please feel free to input on my next question!)  I love this place!~

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