Medical billing is a complicated affair. The consequences of improperly billing someone can be disastrous for your revenue or reputation. Unfortunately, it can be easy to get something wrong. Here are a few common billing mistakes to avoid so your business can operate as smoothly as possible. 

Insurance Verification

In an ideal world, acquiring a patient’s insurance information would be a one-and-done kind of deal. The reality of the situation falls short of the mark, unfortunately. A patient’s insurance information can change on a day to day basis, meaning their eligibility for certain treatments can change as well. The assumption that a patient’s information hasn’t changed from their last visit has caused a number of insurance claim denials. It’s a common enough story. A patient checks in and the clerk assumes the data is up to date, but the patient could receive the full invoice for what had previously been an affordable cost. Sometimes the patient cannot pay, which is bad for revenue and customer relations both. 

Upcoding

One of the more unfortunate common medical billing errors is upcoding the cost of a procedure performed to a more expensive one, or the billing of procedures that were never performed in the first place. Upcoding can have serious repercussions for a business, and is caused most often by honest mistakes during the billing process. A careful review of services performed solves the issue. 

Delinquent Billing Times

Even if all the information on an insurance claim is correct, it can still be denied. The most common reason for this is a missed deadline. Insurance companies have a set time after the service(s) performed that they require an insurance claim be sent in by, An untimely filed claim can be rejected, leading to unnecessary hassle for your practice. It is advised to organize billing by the length of their deadlines. Not every insurance company has the same deadline, so keeping up to date as to which insurances have which deadlines is essential.