Speed Up Collecting Money From Insurance Companies

I’ve been consulting health care professionals for close to 30 years. If there is one problem that comes up over and over again it’s “how do I get paid for all my hard work?” If you look around you’ll see that most businesses get paid before or at the time of service. Did you ever try to walk out of a department store with something you hadn’t paid for? You see what I mean. But this isn’t the case in the health care arena.

The history of health care insurance is fascinating, if you ever want to look into it. But the affect it has on those involved in giving health care is not so fascinating. Losing sleep wondering whether you are going to meet next week’s payroll is not fun.

So how can you speed up your cash flow? The key is not to sit around waiting to be paid. You have to get proactive about pulling in your hard earned money. For electronic billing, the average turnaround time for payment is under two weeks. So, if you haven’t been paid at the two week point, something is wrong. Well, don’t just wait another three or four weeks for the insurance company to tell you something is wrong before taking action. You know, the longer they hold onto your money, the more money they make. So they are not particularly motivated to let you know about a problem and will usually delay until the last legal moment to inform you.

These days you can access the status of your outstanding billings on line at the insurance company’s website. So, log in and find out what’s up! Then give a holler by phone as needed to handle the reasons they are giving you for not being paid. The sooner you find out and handle the stops, the sooner you will get paid. You’ve already earned the money, so get a bit more aggressive about collecting it. You’ll sleep better.