Switching to Electronic Fund Tranfers

[NuBiker]

Hi folks !!!
Hey - do any of you use EFT's? I am thinking of Blue Cross, our biggest account.
I am wondering how do you track payments, especially claims that are not paid.
For instance, AETNA, for behavioral health, when they don't pay a claim, they DO NOT notify me.
I find out when I look at my accounts receivable report in Office Ally, and I see that someone has an outstanding balance.
Currently, my AR report is beee-yooo-tiful!!! So now would be the time to switch to Electronic Fund transfers.

[PMRNC]

With EFT you still get same remittances, only diff is the check isn't attached it's already direct deposited. If you are not getting claim denials or acceptance reports, I would check with your clearinghouse and the carrier, something isn't right there to begin with.

[DMK]

We have EFT with Medicare and our clearinghouse has the EOB ( but I have to GO to the clearinghouse web site each day to look for the EOB).

Aetna mails me a check, and then I have to go to their web site for the EOB.  I also have to go to their web site for $0 EOBs.  ASH is the same.  Blue Cross (Anthem in CA) was going to go to electronic, but somehow couldn't figure out how to make it work. Strange.  I can look up eob's on B/C and B/S sites. (If for some reason I'm missing an eob or looking for status on the claim.

I was VERY leery about EFT, but Medicare's is like clockwork.  Upload your claims, and 14 days later, there's the money in your account.  It's a few more steps, and REMEMBERING to look for the eob's, but it's handy to have that steady stream of income DIRECTLY in you account.

[NuBiker]

I think I will do EFT with AETNA first and see how it goes. We only have 4 AETNA patients right now, so it won't be too difficult to track them. I get acceptance reports from my clearinghouse daily, thru emails, I will have to look around for the denial report.
Thank you both for the replies.

[DMK]

Just to confirm, I get my acceptance reports at my clearinghouse's web site, but I have to go to AETNA's site to get my eob's, including the $0 eob's where the services went to the patient's deductible, or the eob's showing a complete denial.

[Michele]

There is EFT (electronic funds transfer) and ERA (electronic remittance advice).  They easily get confused.  You can have EFT without ERA.  The ERA's stop the paper eobs.  If you have autoposting ERA's are great!  Autoposting is a big time saver.