Work at home - Daily Posting and Deposits

by Donna Nohe
(Bel air, MD)

Do work at home biller's generally make the daily bank deposits? My physician is suggesting I make the deposits. I understand that my deposit must equal my posting to the practice management system, but how does the balancing work when the front desk employees post copays to the patients accounts and they don't get deposited until the following day?

Response:

Donna,

Our clients have always handled the bank deposits and I prefer it that way. But I understand some providers prefer the billing service to deposit and post all the payments. After all we do ultimately have to keep the client happy. Honestly it really works better if only one party does all the posting - otherwise you end up with confusion and payments not getting posted and finger pointing...

We only get copies of the EOB’s or ERA’s. Also we’ll get copies or a log of all the patient payments and co-pays received by the front desk. I have had situations where the office staff posted the copays received at time of service and we posted (but did not receive) the insurance and patient payments.

The problem was sometimes they wouldn’t enter it or would forget to. But I would usually catch this from a written log they kept and sent to me of patients seen that day along with all the copays received. As far as when the copay is posted I would always post the day received verses the day deposited.

If you are expected to handle daily bank deposits then that’s a demand on your time to have to go to the practice every day for pick-up and then go to the bank. The physician probably wants to relieve his/her staff of this task. I would just make sure that your fee reflects the time you will have to spend doing all this running around to make daily deposits - I would expect this to be at least an hour a day depending on relative locations and traffic.

So if you can have them make all the deposits and you post them that’s the ideal situation. If they insist on you making daily deposits and posting insurance payments, just ask that they keep a log of all the payments received in the office and send to you on a daily basis.

Hope this answers your question - Thanks!