You may be the best looking doctor in town with the most attentive manner and the longest list of degrees on your wall. However, if something as routine as your medical billing services creates a headache for your patients, the good feeling they had when they left your august presence will disappear quicker than a lollipop in a pediatrician's office.
A friend of mine, at age 38, visited her physician for a boring run-of-the-mill annual exam. When the billing service submitted the invoice to insurance, it was incorrectly rated as an exam for a woman 40 years old or older. Insurance denied the claim. The billing service sent the medical bill to the patient, with the information that her insurance company had refused to pay. My friend called her insurance company and quickly realized that the mistake was simply a billing error. She called her doctor's office and asked them to resubmit the invoice with the correct age. Somehow the message did not result in any action and the patient ended up being shunned by the physician and threatened with being fired as a patient. Eventually she had to go to the doctor's office, bill in hand, and have the office manager call the insurance company and billing service while she waited.
This story was told to a group of friends over coffee. A new mom in town was looking for recommendations for local doctors and dentists. My friend was not recommending her physician, although she liked the doctor, because of the billing headaches. She was, in fact, eager to get some recommendations herself.
Are you her former doctor? If you're not sure, contact us and we can do an exam…of your medical billing system.
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