Behavioral Health Billing

For nearly 40 years Millin has focused our time, resources, and development on behavioral health medical billing. While most billing companies push out generic software that does just enough to submit a claim across most programs, Millin has carefully designed our MillinPro mental health billing software to include the various mental health and substance use billing nuances laid out in the guidance set forth by payers at all levels.

As behavioral health medical billing in most states moves from a historically simple, single payor system to a multi-payor environment with the likes of Medicaid, Medicare, Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) and commercial insurance at the forefront, it's crucial that your RCM platform can adapt to the constantly changing rules and government regulations across insurance companies to ensure your claims are clean and you are collecting at the highest rate possible for your billed mental health services.

Mental Health and Substance Abuse Billing Features

While many medical billing service companies are focused on hospital billing, physician practice billing, surgical billing, etc., few billing companies have given the necessary attention to mental health and substance use billing.

Millin recognized the need for behavioral health medical billing solutions to focus on reimbursement and all other RCM processes for behavioral health providers. Being that those services are generally reimbursed by Medicaid or MCOs, there are many complicated billing and insurance rules and regulations associated with mental health clinical care. Not only is it critical to get paid in full on all behavioral health claims but ensuring that all mental health and substance abuse billing rules and regulations were followed is just as important to avoid recoupment of payments and penalties upon audit. Most recoupments are not due to fraud but simply due to human error and lack of following certain regulatory requirements that could have been avoided with the right expertise and systems in place. The process of submitting claims with the right CPT codes, modifiers and patient information promptly can significantly reduce the amount of denied or unpaid claims which affects reimbursement.

Millin designs and configures its MillinPro software according to specifications laid out by your behavioral health practice during the implementation process. Rather than providing you with a blank template or “sandbox mode” we make sure to actively build your database on your behalf (with your input), helping you set up your payors, locations, patient demographics, and integrations with your other software so that everything is guaranteed to integrate correctly and ready to bill on Day 1 when you employ electronic claim submission through Millin.

Behavioral health providers who choose to implement Millin alongside their EHR (Electronic Health Record) software of choice recognize a collection rate up to 99.2% across all programs which is well above the industry average. This is because taking a best-of-breed approach means that you can reap the benefits of the best-in-class medical billing software system with a vendor whose primary function is clinical patient records. You no longer need to worry about the “one size fits all” approach many EHR vendors take, leaving substance use and mental health providers in the dark to figure out their own program-specific billing issues.

Because insurance companies seemingly love to make the behavioral health medical billing process increasingly complicated, the day-to-day mental health and substance abuse billing workflow is getting much more labor-intensive and confusing than it has ever been before. Billing accurately, timely, and submitting clean claims is the only way to ensure you are maximizing cash flow, decreasing denials, and ensuring reimbursement remains where it should be. Our mental health software ensures that all patient's insurance information is always up to date, reducing the number of rejected claims. Your agency exists to allow behavioral health experts to deliver therapy services and treatment to patients in need, and that's where your time and effort should go. To help healthcare and medical professionals continue to keep their focus on pursuing their mission, Millin offers full RCM services on top of our MillinPro software.

Contracting with Millin for billing integrated practice management services relieves your behavioral health agency of the burden that comes along with manual billing, allowing your staff to work more effectively at higher-value administrative tasks and providing an elevated patient experience. This approach is proven repeatedly to prevent money being lost due to billing and claim submission errors. To decrease claim denials, increase reimbursement and help get more revenue in the door, our behavioral health and mental health professional billers implement best practices in dealing with various insurance rules and payers.

We offer data-driven revenue cycle management solutions for behavioral and mental health practices.

Additional Benefits When Outsourcing:

• Millin’s medical billing staff specializes in the Clinic billing process.
• Millin has business analysts on staff that review the continuous payer and regulatory changes and communicates with the insurance plans and State when clarification is required, or contradictions are identified to ensure a compliant process.
• Millin has an internal training program to ensure all medical billing staff is up to date with the latest changes and regulations.
• Dedicated account managers.
• Millin advises its client on upcoming billing and regulatory changes.
• Millin can quickly find agency or patient specific issues vs global medical billing issues and address those accordingly as we manage the billing process for many agencies.
• You no longer need to worry about staff turnover.
• You no longer need to worry about patient billing not being processed due to staff being out of the office.
• And many more…

A healthy revenue cycle is essential to an organization's success. Millin's expertly trained staff come from all different corners of the health care world and exist for the sole purpose of making MillinPro and the daily billing process for behavioral health professionals as efficient and effective as possible. Having a well-rounded team focused on reimbursement, insurance regulations and best billing practices means a decrease in the time spent billing and more revenue in the door for your agency.

Millin is made up of various departments with expertise in:

About Us

Millin Associates, a NY-based company, has assisted Health & Human Service agencies to navigate the revenue cycle maze since 1982. By increasing productivity and lowering operating costs, we enable our clients to realize immediate cash flow recovery and higher reimbursement which results in significant reductions in operating expenses.

The ability of our health care revenue cycle management professionals for Mental Health Services, I/DD, Substance Use Services, Health Home, and Foster Care services is unsurpassed. In Millin's philosophy, the responsibility of your EMR should end after the clinical services are documented for the patients. Medical billing data and responsibilities should exist in a software system with a proven track record of focusing on the RCM process to avoid rejected or denied insurance claims. Part of Millin's model is to integrate our software with your agency's EMR so we can receive the patient information seamlessly and bill accordingly.

Experience

Insurance regulations and rules are constantly evolving. Managed Care Organizations have been tasked with reimbursing Medicaid for its services as the government has decided to completely exit the reimbursement business.

MillinPro Billing & Reporting System

To increase efficiency and implement the best billing practices, we developed an innovative and cutting-edge web-based medical billing system. Our company is not like your typical tech company, as we design systems and use them simultaneously.

Providers of mental health and substance use services in New York State are encouraged to use the system to process patient billing.

By developing a flexible system that can adapt to continuous changes in the regulatory and payer landscape, we have succeeded in accommodating to significant changes without having reimbursement affected. Below are a few of the features available through the system:

• A continually updated rules engine that adapts to changing insurance rules and payer mix
• Verifying patient insurance eligibility in batches before submitting claims
• Online claims submissions are no longer necessary - no logging into eMedNY or clearinghouses are necessary to submit claims and download remittances
• User-friendly reporting system with comprehensive reporting capabilities
• With our proprietary issue tracker functionality, you can monitor issues and track receivables in a more efficient manner
• An easily customizable dashboard
• Calculator for APG Grouper (for clinics)
• A user-friendly appointment scheduling system
• The software alerts you to claims that require a prior authorization for patients
• MillinPro attaches the correct CPT codes, ICD code, and billing codes to each claim
• A cloud-based, HIPAA-compliant system with real-time redundancies, backups, and enhanced security features - eliminating the need for costly IT infrastructure and maintenance
• You always have the most recent version of the software because of automatic updates and upgrades
• The ability to integrate with your preferred EMR and accounting software

Transparency With Your Mental Health Billing

A growing number of companies choose to outsource revenue cycle management to Millin Associates because of the increasingly complex mental health billing process. Providing you with access to our innovative revenue cycle management system with customized dashboards and reporting capabilities is a key component of our service.

It is possible to keep track of everything we do at any given time as if we were at your office. We keep an open line of communication with our clients by arranging regularly scheduled phone calls to address questions, modifications in payer policies, and any upcoming regulatory changes as laid out by the various insurance plans. If you have any questions, please contact us via email or telephone during business hours.

From EMR to Billing: Best of Breed

Many of our clients use electronic medical records to keep track of their time with patients. A variety of EMR systems are sometimes used by agencies to track several types of mental health services they provide. Having the ability to integrate MillinPro into your EMR system eliminates the need to worry about whether your EMR system (oftentimes a national vendor) can keep up with State-specific billing changes or specific insurance rules while also providing you with a robust revenue cycle management solution.

Integration of the MillinPro billing system with your EMR can be achieved in the following ways:

1.  A data feed can be created from your EMR for patient claims that are ready to be billed. A report is essentially a document that is then imported into MillinPro.
2.  Integrating your EMR and MillinPro using an HL7 interface. Once billing approval occurs, your claims data is automatically transferred from your EMR into MillinPro. This includes session notes, treatment plans, signatures, and any other patient information required by the EMR.
3.  The MillinPro API should be embedded in the EMR. As soon as claims are approved for billing, MillinPro automatically transfers data from your EMR into MillinPro. Most commonly, this will be an ongoing process.

Taking advantage of our innovative Revenue Cycle Management System specifically designed for mental health services is what's great about this process. You have the option of working within the EMR of your choice while taking advantage of our ultramodern billing system.

Bottom line

As behavioral health services across the country transition from a single payer environment to managed care, medical billing isn't going to be as straightforward as it used to be. Historically, billing agencies have been negatively affected due to a lack of expertise and sophisticated technology. A strong fiscal impact can be made on your private practice or agency by combining the ability of Millin Associates with innovative software and their 30+ years of experience in revenue cycle management services.