Page 36 - HME Business, October 2019
P. 36

You want your patients to feel their best.
We make it easier.
Sigvaris has changed, but our products haven’t.
We are still the brand you rely on
and trust for your compression needs. We just have a new way of looking
at our medical products that makes  solution for your customers.
Let’s live the change together.
Visit us at sigvaris.com to learn more.
Visit us at AVLS in booth #313 and Medtrade in booth #2336
sigvaris.com
SIGVARIS and SIGVARIS GROUP are registered trademarks of SIGVARIS, CH-9014 St.Gallen/Switzerland, in many countries worldwide. © Copyright 2019 SIGVARIS, Inc.
“Whatever they say [they’re collecting], we know that it’s going to be less. They are confusing what they are billing and what they are collecting, because there is always a huge variable in those numbers”
– Terri Minnich, A Perfect Billing Service
34 HMEBusiness | October 2019 | hme-business.com
Management Solutions | Technology | Products
they are in or multiple states, depending where their approvals are coming in, there’s significant complexities of the documentation require- ments. Those are the front end areas that ensure clean claims to begin with,” says Phil Socoloff, senior vice president of Brightree Services. “If you can address clean claims on the front end, you will reduce your problems on the back end.”
Maybe you’re so focused on your core strengths that you trust someone else to do the egghead stuff, and it may not be getting done as well as you think.
“Prior to reaching out they think they know, or that people who are doing it know. When they aren’t liking what they are seeing, they go back in time and look at more numbers. Then they see a problem,” says Terri Minnich, owner of A Perfect Billing Service.
Your assessment of your business will be the basis for your early conversations with billing services. They will also want access to your busi- ness data so they can analyze your workflow and make specific recommendations.
“We will do an analyzation to see what are they getting denials on, what are they writing off, what are they billing, how much are they actu- ally collecting – whatever they say, we know that it’s going to be less. They are confusing what they are billing and what they are collecting, because there is always a huge variable in those numbers,” Minnich says. “A lot of times they have an absolute disconnect. They are relying
on whoever is doing their billing for that infor- mation. They are so busy with what they do and their world that they are relying, a lot of times, on people who aren’t watching numbers. They’re just sending stuff out the door and doing their best to keep up with the documentation.”
EVALUATE YOUR OPTIONS
Choosing a billing service is a bit like choosing a medical professional. You don’t go to a surgeon for an allergy, right? Billing service options range from small, independent services that work mainly with small clients to huge corporations that have the bandwidth to work with large, regional and national DME providers.
Even the industry can’t agree on specific delin- eations, but in general a DME billing less than
$3 million a year is small, $3 million to $8 million is medium, and over $8 million is large. There’s a lot of wiggle room in those strata so it’s best to ask each provider.
“There are services that specialize in different size DME providers. First find the companies that work with companies like you,” advises Graham. “There are a lot of small billing companies that focus on small DMEs. They are a little more expensive, but very high-touch. They really do a lot and they are a great fit for those companies.”
There are also services that focus on different DME categories. In general, Graham says, look for someone with “a deep understanding of your payer and product mix.”
Fortunately, the medical billing industry is
a highly networked web of partnerships and contacts that can help you find the right fit. If you contact a company that doesn’t serve DMEs your size, or offer the services you need, or work with your software, there’s a good chance they can refer you to someone who does.
“My main partners are the software systems that provide billing software. Depending what billing software the provider is using to do their billing, I will direct them to a billing service company that is familiar and uses that software,” says Bruce Gehring, senior vice president of Business Development at Allegiance Group. “You have to have a certain amount of expertise on the software.”
One reason for that is reporting capabilities. All of the billing providers stress the importance of using software that lets you pull up a variety of reports to help flag specific problems and drill in to your work flows, so you can adjust processes to be more efficient.
“What we usually see with the small providers, they come on and they aren’t looking at the data within their system. A lot of resources and time tend to be spent getting that claim out the door, and working that claim maybe the first time,
but they lose sight of all those invoices that are aging, getting into that 90-day, 120-day range. They have to keep up with what is coming in
new as well as keeping up with what’s old,” says Sunil Krishnan, vice president, Global Operations and Analytics, Revenue Cycle Management at Brightree Services. “Part of that struggle is just


































































































   34   35   36   37   38