Medical billing is important to every counseling practice out there. However, implementing a successful medical billing plan or process isn’t always easy. Fortunately, there are medical billing teams dedicated to helping people with this very problem. If you need medical help, consider our friends at Credentialing.com. They can help you improve medical billing collections.

For your counseling practice, your medical billing team can be a huge strength and asset, or a nightmare. Too often it is poor billing processes that destroy therapy practices. Consider these 3 questions:

1. Are you receiving payment for your claims?

Obviously, the point of medical billing is to get paid for your work. But what is reasonable to expect?

A: You are doing well if you receive between 96 to 99 percent of claims, or better said, percentage of money from claims. I make this distinction because if you’re billing for different services, and you’re getting paid on your small claims, but not your high-fee claims, you could potentially have a high percentage of claims paid, but a lower percentage of total money in the door.

A quick note: having 100% of claims paid is always what you’re aiming for–that would be ideal. But in the imperfect system you’re working with (healthcare), be satisfied if you’re receiving 98%.

Consider it a Red Flag is you’re receiving under 95%

If you’re at 94%, don’t panic, but it’s time to look closely at your reports, and determine where you’re losing 6%, so that you can make changes.

Read On: Counselor Medical Billing Questions

A new video we put together reviews three important questions to ask your mental health billing team (or medical billing company), to determine if your practice is up to standard!

Medical billing is a frustrating process for counselors who are often juggling too many business tasks, as well as trying to provide excellent clinical care. In fact, many counseling practices collect less than 85% of the monies that they’re rightly owed from insurance companies. However, with good planning, and a smart billing staff (in house or otherwise), your practice can reasonably expect to collect between 96-99% of claims.

Look out for these pitfalls! There are many reasons that claims can go unpaid, including:

1) You Waited too Long to File the Claim

The vast majority of insurance companies allow 90 days from the time of service to file a claim. However, some insurance companies allow only 30 days to file (and a very few, such as Medicare, allow a year—wow). When claims are filed too long after the date of service, they are rejected.

Read the rest of this article here: Counselor Medical Billing Article