From: "John Brady, MD" <drbrady@thevillagedoctor

From: "lynn ho" <lynnhri@hotmail.com>
Sender: Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com
Mailing-List: list Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com; contact Practiceimprovement1-owner@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 22:36:50 -0500
Subject: RE: [Practiceimprovement1] Medical Billing
Reply-To: Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com

Moitri- I asked the biller from a local family practice to come and
supervise/teach me for the first 3 months. I paid her $15 per hour for 2-4
hours every other week, we sent out the bills on Saturdays, and when I got
better I just saved only billing questions I had for her and sent the others
out. She wasn't using the billing program I use (their office used Medisoft
and I use EZClaim) so it was a learning curve for both of us, but we managed
quite well. After about 3 months of low volume billing, I was able to fly
by myself, with only a few more scattered sessions of questions I saved up.
I think it would have taken much longer for me to figure out how to send
those first few bills by myself and it was really worth it to me to hire
someone.

Lynn Ho

From: "John Brady, MD" <drbrady@thevillagedoctor.hrcoxmail.com>
Mailing-List: list Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com; contact Practiceimprovement1-owner@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:30:30 -0500
Subject: RE: [Practiceimprovement1] billing help needed
Reply-To: Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com

I agree. I have been doing my own billing for about 2 years now and I believe it is simple enough for anyone to do if you keep the number of visits down and you have the right software. My feeling is that when I become so annoyed by the billing that it is worth me paying $20,000-$30,000 a year for someone else to do it, I will outsource this part of my practice. So far that has not happened. My collection rate is about 97%-98% of the allowable. This aspect alone paid for my emr in the first 18 months of practice.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Mydosh [mailto:tmydosh@frontiernet.net]
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 10:38 AM
To: Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Practiceimprovement1] billing help needed

In my opinion, billing is almost trivially easy *IF* you have a limited
number of insurers *AND* they all accept electronic submissions. My billing
software is only available in the upstate NY region, unfortunately.

If you are set up right, all you need is a few CPT codes and a good ICD9
dictionary and you are set to go. For the kind of basic primary care
medicine we do, there is no need to outsource billing. Nobody will care
about your money as much as you do, no matter how much you pay them.

Tom Mydosh MD

At 09:50 PM 3/13/05, you wrote:

>Hi Everyone,
>
>I've been open since 12/01/04. I'm already working
>with my 2nd billing company and I've been dissatisfied
>due to communication lapses and questionable coding
>advice. I'm CONSIDERING learning how to do my own
>billing before I get too busy.
>
>Do you recommend I do it alone? If so, what software
>should I use? I have amazing charts which generates
>bills.
>
>Gwen Hanson
>
>

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 07:30:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: [Practiceimprovement1] Billing
Reply-To: Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com

Scott:

I do my own billing and it has taken time to learn the proper technique. I still don't have all the bugs worked out. It looks like I will have billed $125000 over the last 7-9 months. At 5% that is over $5000 and next year will be even higher. You do all the work now coding the visits and sending superbills. My system links documentation to coding and invoice. May take 15min daily to upload claims. I have been doing them sporadically until all bugs worked out with insurance, medicare, and medicaid. I choose to post all my own EOB's, but BCBC's clearinghouse THIN can automatically post BCBS and I believe Medicare crossover claims into my system. Printing patient statements uses more time. I figure when I am sending out 50-100 claims per week I will use software vendor's statement service for $50 per month plus postage. I will still have to identify which statement to send, but I will not have to stuff envelope. 5% of your time is worth $135/hour or 2 hours per week if your at full capacity = (48*40*.05*135)=$12,960. Otherwise $5000/96= $52/hour to collect your own money.

It may be worth the 5% currently because you have better investment of your time and are not over 50% capacity. Perhaps $2500 this year. $26/hour is still not bad rate of income for your time.

Hope you find the system worth collecting your claims.

It makes me mad that a billing company can collect $12,900 or 10% of my take home income for collecting money owed to me by patient's and insurance companies.

Credit card companies would not operate that way. They collect, charge interest, and fines for the person using the credit card and 1-2% from the merchant who uses the merchant services. We need a credit company that covers medical expenses at the point of care and appropriately charges insurance, company, or individual for our services with interest.

Kevin D. Egly, M.D.

From: "Naureen A. Mohamed" <Dr.naureenmohamed@verizon.net>
X-Yahoo-Profile: naureenmohamed
Sender: Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com
Mailing-List: list Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com; contact Practiceimprovement1-owner@yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com
List-Id: <Practiceimprovement1.yahoogroups.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:Practiceimprovement1-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 13:52:40 -0400
Subject: [Practiceimprovement1] EZ Claims software and Eclaim Clearinghouse
Reply-To: Practiceimprovement1@yahoogroups.com

Hi all.
Just an update on my billing adventures.
I tested my first claim with Eclaim today. It was so EASY! I can't believe I paid all that money to the billing company (especially since it seemed like I was doing all the work!) I then managed to send all my claims that were piling up since June 1st. They were all accepted. Two of them had the wrong payor ID, but once I fixed it, they were accepted. Unfortunately, since the carrier agreements aren't done yet, they will drop to paper. Later, most will be sent electronically. I am so excited, I just had to share. I will keep you posted.

No ties to EZ Claim, Eclaims etc.

Naureen Mohamed MD

__._,_.___