was AARP, changing to Medicare 20% in general

[Guest guest]

I am afraid that I believe that many offices simply do not bill the

patient if the ins. doesn't pay. I recently went to a Medicare

billing seminar where the presenters kept saying that it was illegal

not to try to bill the patient for the 20%, that writing it off as a

matter of practice is something that Medicare can come after you

for. She actually said, " I don't care if it is as little as sending

the patient 1 bill and that's it, but there has to be some good faith

effort to collect the 20% " I am pretty aggressive about biling (we

are struggling financially) and I hear from patients, " Why is this a

problem? My other doctor's offices don't have this problem. " (I

think the other offices write off an extraordinary amount, or don't

even realize what they are not collecting. I recently contacted the

one person support staff of other neurologist in town (she does his

billing) and she couldn't even tell me if they were in-network for a

certain local plan).

e-MDs does not allow us to charge the patient interest, which is

ludicrous. I have argued this with them and they announced, proudly,

that I could go in and add a custom code to every single overdue bill

to charge interest.

In general, I find that the work involved with collection of the

20% from the insurance co. is nuts, and we are hoping to go non-par

because I have better luck collecting it from the patients than from

the ins. companies. (Thanks to all the folks on the list serv who

have put posts about doing this.) We live in a poor area and I know

that we will lose patients by doing this, but I am too humiliated to

tell you all how little we will be making once we are off our income

guarantee.