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Office fiancial policy changes for upcoming changes with ACA

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PMRNC:
Premum requests for the Exchanges won't be due until 1/1/2014 and the premium statements won't have this on them however if you look at the insurability statement that comes when you sign up and with your first payment due.. you will see the grace period displayed.

shanbull:
Oh, I think I know why I didn't see it. We have the option to pay immediately via the exchange (which I did) or to request a bill from the insurance company, which presumably has more info. I will probably get a statement about it in the mail.

shanbull:
We've decided on a policy for our office, it's not going to be completely effective but due to our unique limitations, it's the best we can do without inconveniencing our patients:

Anyone who comes in with an insurance card from the state exchange will have a billing alert added to their account. The front desk will contact the insurer to try to find out if payment was received for the first month's premium. If this information is not something the insurer will release, a second note next to the previous one will be added. They can then request confirmation of payment if the patient has it, but we will not require it because most of our patient don't keep paperwork like that with them.

This will at least let us keep track of how many people are in this situation, we do not expect a whole lot because we have the highest insured population of any state already. If we see a spike in people with these plans we may need to revisit the policy, but for now we just can't sacrifice access to care for protection from recoupment. The doctors agree that this is a risk they need to take. It's a bad situation to put doctors in who already take a hit serving vulnerable populations, but most of our doctors are already resigned to this anyway or they wouldn't be working here.

RichardP:
Here is a useful read on who will qualify for Premium Tax Credits.  All Premium Tax Credits are payable in advance.

http://www.cbpp.org/files/QA-on-Premium-Credits.pdf

shanbull, you say you have the highest insured population of any state.  Consider two things:  First: as people learn how to calculate the Premium Tax Credit, you may discover that many of the already-insured in your state qualify for a Premium Tax Credit.  They would be foolish to not take advantage of that if they can.  Second:  Many businesses are shedding their health insurance programs in any way they can, forcing the already-insured into the exchanges.  That may accelerate when the one-year extension runs out for business to participate in the ACA.  I think we will see many more people with Premium Tax Credits several years from now than we see now.

PMRNC:

--- Quote ---Here is a useful read on who will qualify for Premium Tax Credits.  All Premium Tax Credits are payable in advance.

http://www.cbpp.org/files/QA-on-Premium-Credits.pdf

shanbull, you say you have the highest insured population of any state.  Consider two things:  First: as people learn how to calculate the Premium Tax Credit, you may discover that many of the already-insured in your state qualify for a Premium Tax Credit.  They would be foolish to not take advantage of that if they can.  Second:  Many businesses are shedding their health insurance programs in any way they can, forcing the already-insured into the exchanges.  That may accelerate when the one-year extension runs out for business to participate in the ACA.  I think we will see many more people with Premium Tax Credits several years from now than we see now.
--- End quote ---

Good INFO.. however.. as medical billing companies, and even medical billers in doctors offices.. we should NOT be involved with premium's or tax credit's ASIDE from finding out if they are in the midst of the grace period or not. Their tax credits, their subsidies are not our concern and have NO baring on our jobs.

Just trying to clarify this because many are making this much harder than it needs to be from our end.

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