If I were to hire you to code and bill my services, I would ask you......Do you send claims electronically? What clearinghouse are you using for Federal, State and commercial payers? Are you going to be using direct deposit and electronic payment posting? What is you number of days for payment? What is your denial rate? Are you willing to come to my office to copy records if I don't have EMR? If you are charging me by the chart, does this mean one charge for the chart from time of coding to time of payment. Will you also be taking care of my creditentialing needs? NPI's? Denials? Appeals? Hearing level appeals? Collections? Mailing statements? Skip tracing?
Oh the joys of Medical Billing ......... Let me add to that list
If I was a client... I'd ask....
How will I pay you? Do you directly bill me or will you take your commission out? (Normally commission is paid on a WEEKLY basis)
How will I get my charges to you? Electronically or on paper?
Will you create my super bill or charge slip?
Do you have a courier that will come and gather my charges each day or do I mail them, or do I scan them?
Will you create my fee schedule? Will you update it?
If you're doing my credentialing, who should I participate and why?
Will I have access to your software?
Will I be able to check patient balances?
Are you going to code for me? or will I have to?
(My advice - always make the coding the responsibility of the provider/practice - to protect yourself - this needs to be in the service agreement. You may have certified coders on staff, but the responsibility is still of that of the provider/practice.)
When will you report to me? Weekly, biweekly, monthly?
(My advice - report WEEKLY - medical billing changes DAILY, actually by the minute!!!, if there is a problem, you don't want to wait a month to find out!! and they always call when they get the reports - so weekly is best!)
Do you track RVU's?
Will you audit my charges?
Will you "train" me or "teach me" (or my staff) on E/M coding?
Just in my experience.... don't get involved in "collections" send them to a 3rd party collection agency - write off the bad debt off the A/R and be done with it - it's a hassle thats why collections/attorneys need to get involved further. However, you should be able to "identify" what patients are ready to go to collections - standard I believe is 3 patient statements, attempt to make phone calls, send one demand letter, and if no response, they are identified for "bad debt" and ready to go to collections with the approval of the provider/practice.
As I think of more questions, I'll add them
