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Alethea Bryant, NRCCS: Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 3:34 PM
If you are a mental health professional looking to work with health insurance carriers then you should familiarize yourself with BHOs, or Behavorial Health Organizations. The primary purpose of most health insurance policies is to handle those ailments caused by physical problems and not mental or psychologically based problems. Therefore, when someone is needing assistance with psychologically based problems, there is a wealth of information and details that must be kept and administered too. |
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Alethea Bryant, NRCCS: Posted on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 2:58 PM
Version 5010, are you ready? If you work in the healthcare industry you should be VERY AWARE of the major changes occurring with insurance claims processing. Due to inaccuracies in reporting information gathered from claims and incorrect payments made due to code choices, the healthcare industry will be migrating to the use of ICD-10 codes. This means that diagnosis codes will go through a major overhaul, expanding from five (5) alpha numeric places to seven (7) alpha numeric places. |
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Alethea Bryant, CCS: Posted on Saturday, November 05, 2011 11:16 AM
Have you considered joining insurance panels, or becoming contracted with insurance carriers so that you can see patients that carry a specific type of insurance? Do you know what it will take to do so? Which carriers do you choose to work with? All of these are important things to consider when you are wanting to become contracted with any insurance carrier. First, you need to think about the which carriers you are interested in joining (Aetna, BCBS, Cigna, Humana, Medicare, Medicaid, united Healthcare, Tricare). |
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Alethea Bryant, CCS: Posted on Thursday, October 06, 2011 3:01 PM
There are thousands of mental health providers who decide to venture out into the world of private practice who are totally unaware of how insurance may, or may not play a part in the success of their firm. Like any other type of provider, you must be aware of the rules of working with insurance as it pertains specifically to your profession. First, you need to decide what type of insurance may be beneficial to your practice. There are hundreds of commercial carriers (aka private insurance) and state health programs (like Medicare and Medicaid) and even military (Tricare or formerly CHAMPUS). |
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Alethea Bryant, CCS: Posted on Monday, September 12, 2011 3:38 PM
Once you become contracted with various insurance carriers, there are many pieces of working with insurance that you must keep in mind as a provider to make it worth the effort. You automatically agree to the contracted rate or physician fee schedule with the carrier per your contractual agreement, that stipulates how much they will pay you for each particular service that you provide. Although, there are other fees that you want to make sure you also collect so that you are not just |
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Alethea Bryant, CCS: Posted on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 12:45 PM
Medical credentialing is the process of submitting your application to an insurance carrier to participate with them as a new in-network provider. Upon submission, the insurance carrier will verify all information provided, making sure that you as a provider have the required training to practice in your field, have met state and federal licensing guidelines and you carry the minimum liability insurance for your related area(s) of expertise. Once this process has been completed, you will then become contracted with the insurance carrier, agreeing and signing documentation about to the terms outlined by the carrier regarding services rendered, patient treatment restrictions, record keeping, state and federal laws adherence and reimbursement schedules. |
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Alethea Bryant, CCS: Posted on Friday, August 12, 2011 11:31 AM
In order to run a successful practice, you must make sure that you have effective time management skills. Maintaining a practice entails juggling various parts such as; scheduling and taking care of patients, bookkeeping/record keeping and financial outlooks, claims submission and review, patients account updates and marketing. To ensure that all areas are being covered adequately, time management is the key! Every provider should make sure to implement some type of scheduling system for the practice that outlines when each activity is to be completed and how much time will be spent doing so. |
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Alethea Bryant, CCS: Posted on Thursday, August 04, 2011 2:01 PM
Current Procedure Terminology (CPT) or Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) Level II codes are used to give a detailed explaination of a specific type of medical procedure completed for an insurance carrierandstate offices who collect information on medical procedures. While there are thousands of codes that can be used, you must be very careful to not inadvertantely use an incorrect code or make sure to have the right modifier with the code. A modifier helps to explain the procedure in greater detail, i. |
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Alethea Bryant, CCS: Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2011 4:46 PM
Massage therapists are often looking for various avenues to increase their patient base and grow their practice. Although most go thru school, graduate and then start their own business, they are unsure about their options for gaining more clients. Many understand that they can have clients pay for their services by cash or charge, yet most do not know that insurance is also an option. How can this be? While it is true that massage therapist are not allowed to contract directly with any health insurance carrier thus far, they are able to contract with a few auxiliary networks that in turn work directly with the health insurance carriers. |
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Alethea Bryant, CCS: Posted on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 3:02 PM
After completing your formal schooling, obtaining your required certifications and licensing with the appropiate boards, now it is time to open your practice and began acquiring patients. In the process though, have you taken time to complete an assessment of how much money your practice needs to earn monthly, even daily to operate (minimum income amount)? Or how many patients you will need to see each day to reach this mimimum goal? It is possible to complete an analysis that enables you to forecast this information, even before you start seeing patients. |
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