We review the complete billing process and chain of paperwork of your staff. Specific areas of interest could include:
- The coding tables and charge structure utilized by the facility, since codes change on a yearly basis and reimbursement changes from payer to payer, and from year to year.
- Determining if you are gathering enough information from the patient before services are rendered. For example, with the advent of HIPAA, many more items of information are required in order to complete a bill.
- The roles and procedures for your registration staff. We assess all current procedures for gathering patient demographics, including insurance information.
- When, where, and how the accounts are reconciled, and review to see how long bills remain “open.” We then work towards a prompt accounts receivable follow-up, especially in the area of unbilled or denied claims which tend to get ignored as staff gets pressured to get out current billing.
- Contracts and fee schedules with managed care companies. When necessary, we train your staff to recognize which managed care companies have contracts with the facility, and which patients are to be seen only on an emergency basis, as there is no contract in place for non-urgent services.
This review assessment will be done in each area where the facility registers patients.
Once we obtain enough information, we send your management team a report detailing the systems examined, the issues, and possible solutions. The report is written so that every department has its own section, with a review of the overall system preceding it.
Millin Associates will then, upon approval from the facility, begin to change protocols and train staff in new protocols. Depending on the approach, we may have to train the staff on new software or encounter usage. We establish protocols and timeframes for each step to be completed.
The process of setting up the consulting relationship between Millin Associates and most facilities takes approximately six weeks.