The House of Representatives passed legislation that averts for another year a 24.9 percent Medicare payment cut previously scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2011.  The measure has already passed the Senate by unanimous consent. To pay for the legislation, the bill changes existing policy regarding overpayments of the healthcare affordability tax credit.  President Obama supports the bill and is anticipated to sign it into law shortly.

As of January 1st, many patients will have new insurance coverage as a result of their employer changing health plans. It is also likely that the plan benefits will be different and the patient will probably be unfamiliar with them.

To avoid claim rejections, referral errors, and unpleasant coverage limitation surprises, PDS recommends verifying eligibility for all patients prior to each office visit. While impractical to accomplish using the telephone, this task is easily performed using our appointment scheduler, the Internet, and InstaMed. Eligibility requests for most payers can be sent from the software automatically each morning and the results are easily viewed on the InstaMed web site.

If your practice isn't performing this important task each day, you're probably experiencing claim denials due to terminated insurance coverage. Please contact PDS at (619) 757-2200 if you would like to learn how to implement this procedure in your office.

As the New Year approaches, we'd like to take this opportunity to remind our clients that practice collections are always lower at the beginning of the year when patient deductibles must once again be met. Remind your front desk staff to collect a suggested payment of $50 from established patients that don't have a fixed co-payment for office visits. For new patients, a payment of $75 to $100 is recommended. This will help sustain the practice's cash flow while insurance claims are processed and patients are then billed for the remaining amounts they may owe.