Transitioning to In House Billing

[ElsyOMC2020]

Our practice will be transitioning to in house billing. Any information on the steps needed for this? Is there liability insurance that we should be purchasing. I would appreciate any feedback you are able to provide!

 

[SharonCollachi]

I have helped a number of practices take their own billing back.

* Check with your regular company insurance and see if you should have anyone on your staff bonded in case of theft or diversion, or if you need additional coverage.

* Gather information on all of your insurance companies, see if you will be needing to submit address changes (some people have their payments sent directly to their billing service, which I think is a Bad Bad Thing).

* Get your billing software in place, make sure you have trained staff.

* Determine a work-flow for billing and have policies in place (how frequently are statements sent, when are people sent to collections, are people discharged if you send them to collections, how frequently are electronic and paper claims sent, etc.).

* Check to see if you have to arrange for a Clearinghouse yourself or if your software provides this service.

* Determine how you will notify the insurance companies of your new clearinghouse/electronic billing system.

* Determine if you need to change ERA and EDI direct deposit information.

* Determine what MEDICARE needs from you in the changeover - getting all of the Medicare changes in place can take longer than any other step, and doing it wrong could mean you cannot bill Medicare for a long time - you'll be holding your claims until it is straightened out and that could mean a significant slowdown in cash flow.

* Determine how you're going to get all of your information back from the billing service.

* Determine what historical data needs to go into your new software.

* Pick a drop-dead date.