Billing

[C Fiber]

Can anyone recommend a good pain billing company? How much do they usually cost? Is it better to just do your billing inhouse as a new pain doc? Thanks.

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[Aether2000]

We use PBN in KC....not too shabby and charge 8% of collections...

 

[C Fiber]

Thanks Algosdoc,
You always have a good answer to a question. Hope it's not too much trouble, but what is PBN's approximate collection %? Do they do good followups? How do you check their performance?

 

[Aether2000]

Since most of our practice is contracted insurance or Medicare, the percentage collected is very close to the expected rate. For instance, for Medicare if you charge $500 for a procedure and the Medicare rate is $120, and Medicare pays 80% of that amount, the only question then is does PBN collect the other 20%. For the most part, they do. Then you could calculate your collection rate as either 99% (after contractual writeoffs) or as 24% (without consideration of contractual writeoffs). For commercial insurance, most of the payments are at the expected rates. We precert procedures when possible and when not, we look at the medical policy of coverage for the insurer to make sure all the Ts are crossed before doing the procedure. Turnover is fast...we use an electronic transfer of billing information and have patient balances available at the office window when seeing patients during checkout from followup procedures. Interestingly, the fact that we prescribe narcotics as a balanced program actually increases our percentage collections for the procedures since we will see the patient again and again long term in followup, and require payment for services rendered, including payment for procedures. The patients do not receive their scripts unless they pay their bills since the scripts are a rendered service. It has also been a convenience for patients to pay with credit cards and we have a credit card reader at the front desk. We do not extend credit on account, therefore our AR is very low.

 

[Doctodd]

I agree. About 5-10% is standard for a billing company. Ours charges 8% also. Think about how much space you have to spare and how much hassle you want if you want to have your own inhouse billing.

T