The Insurance Company race to the bottom.
In response to my recent blog about “gap” invoices being increasingly used to mitigate fee reduction(s) imposed on consultant surgeons, many emailed me and disagreed. It is of no surprise the...
My View on “Top Up” Invoices
Top up (or GAP) invoices - asking the patient to agree to pay the difference between a consultant's fee and the fee an insurance company is prepared to pay. The discussion concerning them seems to...
Meaningful patterns
Reading Matthew Syed's latest work reminded me of something I'm conscious of when I look at the business performance of the private medical practice. Meaningful patterns. One...
SELF FUNDING PATIENTS.
It wasn't so long ago I went on record as saying sending a self funding patient an invoice by email was a waste of time. I still stand by that. Empirical evidence from January 2015 to April...
Was only a little mistake – almost cost £275 though
Get the details right! I'm very much a "do it once and do it right" type of person. As I write this I'm on hold to a particular insurance company and have been for thirteen minutes and...
I’ll take a look at it next week
There a few things I hear that automatically set alarm bells ringing when I look at the invoicing and billing process of a business. "I'll take a look at it next week" "I'll get round to it in a...
Beethoven was deaf but….
He wrote the 9th Symphony. One of the most acclaimed pieces of music in the world was written by a deaf man! How? Actually, Beethoven wasn't deaf when he wrote the 9th but he was profoundly...
The answer hidden in plain sight
Like many problems faced by a medical practice or any other business, an answer to a problem can often be hidden in plain sight. This was the case when I undertook a management consultancy...
You have NO choice, you must use a CCSD code.
What's a CCSD code? A CCSD codes is used by insurance companies to identify a medical procedure. An Orthopaedic surgeon, for example, understands what a Multiple arthroscopic operation on...
Do it now – then you will get paid!
It never ceases to amaze me the number of occasions where a new client claims he has been having issues getting paid by an insurance company only for me to discover why within minutes....
Uplifting a fee
I've been asked to re-published the following which first appeared last year. The first thing to realise about increasing a fee is that you CANNOT increase a fee for all your surgical...
The Surgeon’s fee was NOT wrong
An MHM client recently performed a certain surgical episode. The surgery was something he'd done many, many times before with invoices being sent and paid. Normal stuff Pretty standard in...