The Benefits of Electronic Submission of Medical Insurance Claims

Are you still sending your medical insurance claims by way of "snail mail"? If so, I highly recommend submitting your medical claims electronically, as you are definitely missing out on the prompt turn-around your medical practice deserves, or possibly even requires. The significant role electronically submitted medical claims plays in your practice is tremendous; in some cases it means the difference between success and failure.

Electronic submission of medical claims just makes sense to your practice. For instance, did you know that when claims are received by insurance carriers through electronic submission, they take precedence over the paper claim? Because of this, electronic claims pay just days - versus weeks or months when transmitted via paper claims.

Please keep in mind, however, that simply submitting claims electronically is not enough; you must also make certain you are reading the electronic reports. If the electronic reports are not read you are almost certain to lose money. The content of these reports contains extremely important information; therefore it is imperative to the financial health of your practice that these reports are being read and managed on a regular basis. Not doing so will result in a complete downward spiral of any practice's accounts receivable.

The electronic report will enable you to determine whether or not your entire batch of claims was received. You see, even though you may send the batch, there is a good possibility that it may not have been accepted by the clearinghouse. As a matter of fact, something as minor as a punctuation mark or an incorrect space in an address or insurance number can cause an entire batch of electronically submitted claims to be rejected. If you are not checking your reports there's a strong possibility that you're not getting paid for the entire batch of claims possibly due to one minor clerical error.

You'll also want to be certain to properly review and manage your "specific payer reports". The information contained within these reports will provide you with such information as whether or not a patient's insurance is terminated, or perhaps if the insurance is requesting additional information before the claim will be considered for payment, etc. If these issues are not corrected the claim will simply not result in payment.

More often than not, the accounts receivables suffer in a busy medical office simply due to the lack of time the office staff has to focus on the billing end of the practice; it's unfortunate, but when this occurs the doctor has no idea just how many claims remain unpaid. If by chance your accounts receivable are not what you think they should be, looking into a professional medical billing service could perhaps benefit your practice.

In summary, a physician owes it to himself to seriously consider a professional medical billing service and what this important decision could mean to his practice's health and well-being. I wish you the best for your practice's success.

Patricia Crowell is a professional medical biller, and has assisted physicians of numerous specialties to maximize their accounts receivables for more than 17 years. Patricia Crowell is also the founder of Acclaim Medical Billing, which may be found at AcclaimMedicalBill.com

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