Medicare Assignment

[Pay_My_Claims]

And your grave stone!


Good story. And true.

it may be, and like i said and its my opinion it is stupid and ridiculous to ask someone that. i have made this point before and the smart consumer would eliminate this FRAUD happens everywhere. giving a physician too much personal information is setting yourself up to be a victim of fraud. Yes the DL is requested often, and is totally different from other information. It is used to verify you are who you say your are. it is PICTURE ID.  When I have a copy of my DL. I ALWAYS mark out the DL# because with that you can get other information. When I receive my information from the IRS they don't have anything but the last 4 digits. If a physician is concerned about getting paid, then COLLECT UP FRONT!!! I have NEVER been asked for such information in 42 years. It must be location oriented.

[Pay_My_Claims]

The other day, i went to an appointment, while sitting there, a woman walked in.  They asked her for her DL. She said the same as you, Charlene.  They just stood back while this woman yelled, screamed, and berated the staff.  When she was done, they politely told her there were no appointments available and they werent accepting any new patients.  She started her tirade again.  They said she was free to go across the parking lot to the urgent care center.  They said the UCC would also ask her for her DL.  When she began to yell, scream and start all over again, a local police officer walked in. A patient in one of the exam rooms heard her and called the police.  She was asked to leave the office.  She slapped the officer and said she wasnt leaving until she was seen. Needless to say, she was hndcuffed and escorted to the back seat of the police cruiser. 

The office staff apologized. I smiled and said I understood.  But they kept their cool.  They were firm on their policy.  They started this because of the many denied claims and mail returns.  They do collect copays, coinsurance and deductibles.   

You can be firm on your personal policy but they can say, thanks and dont let the door hit you in the fanny on the way out.  It works both ways. ike I said, here, if you want a DL, you have to bring in the folowing:

One of the Following
Original or certified United States birth certificate
Valid United States passport
Certificate of Naturalization

In addition one of the following secondary documents is required:
Social Security Card
Parent Consent form of Minor
Marriage Certificate

That information is NOT kept on file. It is viewed and handed back to you!! THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE. My personal information that can be used for IDENTITY THEFT is not going to go where someone can keep it. This is why they altered credit card machines to not allow the provider to have a copy of the receipt with the CC # on it. When I used to pay for things by CC I would scratch the number off of it to prevent that.

[Pay_My_Claims]

In NJ, in addition to what Steve has listed above, when you renew your license, you must also present an original bill showing your current address; i.e. a phone bill, utility bill, etc.  When my 17 year old got her license this year, she did not have to bring in a bill, but she HAD to have a piece of mail addressed to HER with our current address.

key word is present it..........Medical offices COPY AND KEEP ON FILE!!

[Danni R.]

When Steve said:

One of the Following
Original or certified United States birth certificate
Valid United States passport
Certificate of Naturalization

In addition one of the following secondary documents is required:
Social Security Card
Parent Consent form of Minor
Marriage Certificate

I really, really thought he was kidding. When reading over a second time, I realized he said ONE of the following. That's better. Because initially I thought all.

[Peter007]

I wish all doctors start thinking like this, but mostly dont. Whenever a doctor setups a new practice, patient's balance is not a primary headache so most of the doctors dont give it much worth but with the progress of practice that balance also starts increasing. I am not talking abt one or two examples given here. It's about hundreds out there. If every doctor starts following guidelines given here i think the collection agencies would go on a long vacation.

[Pay_My_Claims]

I wish all doctors start thinking like this, but mostly dont. Whenever a doctor setups a new practice, patient's balance is not a primary headache so most of the doctors dont give it much worth but with the progress of practice that balance also starts increasing. I am not talking abt one or two examples given here. It's about hundreds out there. If every doctor starts following guidelines given here i think the collection agencies would go on a long vacation.

Not even....nothing here will get you your money. So what if you have the correct address or billing information. Do you believe just because someone gets billed, they will pay??? The ONLY guarantee of your money is UP FRONT COLLECTIONS!! You have a fee schedule, you have the ability to check deductibles, coins, amounts applied, you know how to calculate what the insurance company will pay. Collect now and don't deal later. It is also untrue that providers are not concerned with patient balances. They are moving forward daily with new programs and policies to address the issues of patient collections. If nothing else, a NEW practice is more focused on patient balances because he is already in debt. He has just started a new practice and has to wait to get established.

[Danni R.]

Not even....nothing here will get you your money. So what if you have the correct address or billing information. Do you believe just because someone gets billed, they will pay??? The ONLY guarantee of your money is UP FRONT COLLECTIONS!! You have a fee schedule, you have the ability to check deductibles, coins, amounts applied, you know how to calculate what the insurance company will pay. Collect now and don't deal later. It is also untrue that providers are not concerned with patient balances. They are moving forward daily with new programs and policies to address the issues of patient collections. If nothing else, a NEW practice is more focused on patient balances because he is already in debt. He has just started a new practice and has to wait to get established.

I somewhat disagree with this statement... only, because the words "Nothing" and "ONLY" are very strong words. I do not believe that every person is out to rip the doctor, or hospital off by skipping town, or flat-out ignoring bills. Some debtors might have just hit a period of difficult time, temporary hardship, or simply forgot the bill. As a matter of fact, I am willing to bet that most people are not opposed to paying their obligations, and will eventually pay. When someone is on a very tight budget, then naturally certain bills are simply put on the back burner.

Rent, food, utilities, daycare cost, and transportation usually come first. But with enough calls and billing reminders, mostly due to the creditor's persistence, most people work out a plan. Interestingly, the bills that usually do wind up on the bottom of the stack are medical office bills, indeed. Therefore, I am leaning more toward Peter's and Steve's suggestions on this issue...

The only back-draw, when collecting later, rather than upfront, is that it is much more time consuming, and costly later. Here might be the point where A/R factoring comes back into a play.

A discussion we had a few months back on this topic: http://medicalbillingandcoding.net/med_bill_forum/smf/index.php/topic,1866.msg31513.html#msg31513

However, I don't know for sure if A/R funding services also fund, then collect from private parties, i.e. individual patients (I really dunno!).

[Peter007]

I am not saying that doctors have no intrest in collecting the amount upfront also dont want to falsifiy any of the things said above but in most of the cases providers are more concerned about the payment from insurances and not much concerned about the patient payments which remain un paid at the time of visit. Again i said early days of their practices. I am saying this coz i have worked with alot of doctors and same story repeats again and again. Also as they are starting a new setup so they dont make any strict rules. With the passage of time they start realizing the flaws in their system and then they make policies.

[Danni R.]

I am not saying that doctors have no interest in collecting the amount upfront also don't want to falsify any of the things said above but in most of the cases providers are more concerned about the payment from insurances and not much concerned about the patient payments which remain un paid at the time of visit. Again i said early days of their practices. I am saying this coz i have worked with alot of doctors and same story repeats again and again. Also as they are starting a new setup so they don't make any strict rules. With the passage of time they start realizing the flaws in their system and then they make policies.

I've seen this myself, and heard similar stories during my time working as a medical assistant. It's true; doctors are usually NOT very good business people, until they have learned the ropes (sometimes the hard way). Reason: medical school education focuses primarily on medicine, not business management.

[Pay_My_Claims]

I am not saying that doctors have no intrest in colleting the amount upfront also dont want to falsifiy any of the things said above but in most of the cases providers are more concerned about the payment from insurances and not much concerned about the patient payments which remain un paid at the time of visit. Again i said early days of their practices. I am saying this coz i have worked with alot of doctors and same story repeats again and again. Also as they are starting a new setup so they dont make any strict rules. With the passage of time they start realizing the flaws in their system and then they make policies.

I don't see that. Providers are being more diligent in sending clients to collections. Times are hard, economy is bad, so I don't know where the conception that providers are not concerned about patient bills comes from. Reimbursements are lower than ever so for a provider to be callous about a patient bill is to say the least cutting his own throat. Also Danni can be correct in saying they are poor business owners, because by nature they are here to heal, but they are smart enough to hire BUSINESS OFFICE MANAGERS to chase after the money.

[Danni R.]

Yes, Charlene, as weird and strange it sounds (to us business savvy people), I can confirm that what Peter said is true: just a few years back, less than a decade, while the economy was still good, many doctors (esp. in private solo-practices) were more concerned about payments from the health insurances, and not as much concerned about the patient payments.

They just sent the 30-60-90-120 day bill reminders, and then, wrote the loss off, and perhaps, asked the patient to find a new provider once a certain amount of time had passed. That's how it was. Doctor's found it inconceivable, and perhaps unethical, to COLLECT UPFRONT. After all, they couldn't bill someone unless they had seen the patient, and couldn't hold them on their way out, preventing them from leaving unless their fee was paid in full. The most we could ask for was the co-payment, somewhere between 10 and 18 dollars, and special arrangements were made with private (self-pay) patients, without insurance.

Dismissing a patient for non-payment is a process the doctor has to follow through properly, sending a certified letter in the mail; and it must include names and addresses of at least 3 other doctors in the area in the same specialty who may be able to continue the patient's care.

However, it could be very well true, that nowadays, even doctors are focused on collecting as much as possible, even from the smaller fish. Goes to show, in tough times, everything boils down to simply keeping the ship afloat.

[Peter007]

I was not talking about the present situation, it was infact the general overview of how things proceed here. Obviously present situation is not forever and things would hopefully move towards betterment.
In a group practice where plenty of doctors are working there is a more complicated situation with patient's billing. Single provider practice obviously has a different setup. I wish anyone agrees here:-\

[Pay_My_Claims]

I was not talking about the present situation, it was infact the general overview of how things proceed here. Obviously present situation is not forever and things would hopefully move towards betterment.
In a group practice where plenty of doctors are working there is a more complicated situation with patient's billing. Single provider practice obviously has a different setup. I wish anyone agrees here:-\

Excuse me Peter, but I don't have to agree with you. Opinion is just that....a choice. What you see and what I see is different. Perhaps had you said "in the past" maybe I would have agreed with you, but that was not the case. If you are changing your post to reflect that, then obviously you are in agreement with my post. To me you contradict yourself when you feel providers are going out the way to obtain billing information from clients so they can send them a statement, but then say they don't care about patient bills...which one is it???

[Peter007]

Actually i was not trying to argue with anyone, coz most of the people here are far more experienced than me. I am trying to share my experiences with you. Obviously i can guess that you people are working as Managers or so with providers but i am working in a billing company so my experience is different then yours. You should try to look it from a billers point of view. Working with provider and working for a provider are different in many ways. I just want to share my point of view. I am getting good knowledge here, again my point is same that as a biller i think providers dont care much about patient's payment or i should say they dont rely on them. Their main source or what they expect to be the main source is insurances. Obviously if a provider has medicaid patients he would rely on insurance rather than patient.

[Danni R.]

I was not talking about the present situation, it was infact the general overview of how things proceed here. Obviously present situation is not forever and things would hopefully move towards betterment.
In a group practice where plenty of doctors are working there is a more complicated situation with patient's billing. Single provider practice obviously has a different setup. I wish anyone agrees here:-\

Well, yes. That's agreeable. Of course single provider practices have different setups. We all know that. And I agree, providers are not usually going out their way to obtain billing information from clients so they can send them their statement. For some reason, I am getting the feeling we are all saying the same thing here, but somehow the point keeps getting lost. (Hehehehe! One of the wonderful challenges in forums).

Have a great day everyone... we are going to Golden Corral.