Chiropractic Billing Secrets – Tactic #10 – What Insurance Companies Don’t Want You to Know

What Insurance companies don't want you to know.

Strategy Review
In most cases insurance companies have 45 days to process the claim once they receive it. Key words, process, and receive.  Remember, they make up to 50% of their profit from interest earned on your money.  Not just premiums they have collected from patients.  The insurance company strategy comes in four basic flavors.

  1. Delay claim submission
  2. Prevent claim submission
  3. Prolong the “processing” time.
  4. Take the money they paid back from the doctor.

Now we know their motivation. If you look at the chart above it is pretty obvious.  What tactics to they use to make it happen?

 

Tactic # 10 – Fear, Uncertainty and IntimidationSEE VIDEO
Interwoven into all of these tactics is a sense of fear, uncertainty and intimidation.  A doctor fights back against an audit.  Suddenly he hears his patients are getting letters stating he is under investigation for insurance fraud.  They stop coming in, cash flow comes to a halt.  Money owed to him on past claims is held by the insurance company, we’ll apply it toward your settlement.  They report the doctor to the state board.  Even if he did nothing wrong the board will have to investigate and it will cost him.  His reputation is trashed, his license is in jeopardy, legal bills skyrocket while cash flow comes to a standstill.  What can he do except pay?
That is the extreme example.  There is a much more subtle fear and uncertainty.  It is a known fact that when there are too many decisions to make a person will choose not to make one if they can.  With all of the coding rules, documentation, compliance, red flag triggers compounded by finding , hiring and managing billing staff the billing problem seems insurmountable.  It’s easier to go cash. That is when we let them win.  Collect premiums and never pay.  Then they take the money and audit more chiropractors.Summary – SEE VIDEO
I have hundreds of clients and I see thousands of insurance claims each month.
Managing billing is just one component of the greater profitability picture.  Learn how to defend yourself and your practice profitability against insurance company tactics in upcoming webinars, articles, emails, blogs, videos, posts and tweets.

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