Out of Net-Work Payments going to Patient

[Guest guest]

Hello Group,

We've decided to go out of network for our satellite office and discovered

the payments are as much as 5 times higher. The problem we have is that the

checks go to the patient, in the patients' name. Despite our efforts of

making the patient sign our policy to reassign the checks and constantly

reminding the patients' to bring the check in etc there are patients that

deposit these checks and spend that money and can not pay us. I know we can

go to small claims court or send them to collections, but is there an easier

way? Can we have the patient sign a release allowing the insurance company

to send the checks directly to our office?

Thanks

Mike Rizkalla

Trinity Rehab, NJ

> Just to clarify, CMS has no national policy on

> iontophoresis. It is your individual Medciare

> contractor that determines whether they will reimburse

> for iontophoresis or not.

>

> Rick Gawenda, PT

> President

> Section on Health Policy & Administration

> APTA

>

> --- lydia radosevich <lydiapropt@... <lydiapropt%40yahoo.com>>

> wrote:

>

> > Hello Everyone,

> > I have two questions: 1. Can you reuse the ionto

> > electrodes the next day for the same patient. Will

> > they still transmit the medicine. I just tried it on

> > myself, but the machine kept shutting down, why?

> > 2. Sounds like a lot of us were not informed by

> > Medicare/CMS that they quit paying for

> > Iontophoresis, so it's not just me. Has anyone made

> > any formal complaint to them about this? Has The

> > APTA had any communication with them as to it would

> > be expected that they inform us ahead of time if

> > they are going to discntinue to pay for a service

> > which they have been paying for.

> > Lydia Radosevich

> > Ruidoso,NM

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

>

>

>