by Gina Lopez
(Ventura County, CA)
Hi Gina!
Its me Gina again, I was wondering how soon you collect your first fee. If you sign your contract January 1st, do you wait until Feb. 1st to get your percentage? I would think some of that money wouldn’t be claims that were billed by you. Am i thinking of it more complicated then i need to be?
Also when you start a project for providers to recoup old AR do you charge a separate fee for those claims? If so how do you keep track of these claims?
I am crossing my fingers that i can start my business part-time as of the first of the year and have so many questions!!!
Thank you!
Gina L.
Answer:
Gina,
Regarding when to collect your first fee – we usually bill monthly – but have some clients who prefer every other week or twice a month.
If you started billing in January I would probably wait until February to invoice the client. And usually the first months fees aren’t as much because the claims and billing you started are just starting to get paid. You just invoice on the claims submitted by your medical billing service.
We run the standard report in the practice management (or medical billing) software to include with the invoice to show what we billed and posted.
Sometimes the transition from the old billing service to the new – or from in-house billing to your billing service is a little “messy” because you have to separate the EOB’s or Remittance Advice from the old to the new if that makes sense.
With regard to working old claims we sometimes charge a higher percentage (like maybe 10% to 15%) because it’s significantly more work to work on old AR – but I have charged more “normal” rate like 7% or 8% if trying to win the clients business and get a foot in the door – it’s also easier because you don’t have to track separately.
We usually keep a spreadsheet of the old claims when working old AR. They are usually easy to spot when posting from the EOB’s because of the old Service Dates – but it does involve extra work to track.
Also if you are switching to your billing system/software it’s much easier to track – both the current and AR work. That’s why we try to convince the practice to let us use our system – but give them access. But I realize that’s not always possible as some doctors like to control the practice management system.
Hope this helps some and good luck with getting started.
Thanks,
Gina W.