Musical Insurances

For the moment, I still take almost all insurances in my practice. And as long as I see enough patients (ie as long as the phone rings) I’m doing okay. I’ve been billing electronically with a free clearinghouse for about five years now, and things are pretty good. (Give it another week to make sure I’m still getting paid using ICD-10 codes, though.) Over all these years, I’ve only dropped one insurance. It covered a fair number of patients, including many of my favorites. It paid terribly, though I’ve recently realized that there’s another plan that pays even less. So why did I drop that one plan? It was the hassle factor. For some outrageously obscure reason, this insurance insisted on using my employer ID on claims instead of the SSN accepted by every other insurance. I had to remember to go in manually every time I created a claim and switch the numbers around. Given how poorly it paid, eventually it got to the point where it wasn’t worth it. I tried calling the plan to see if I could negotiate a better rate. Suffice it to say, they offered only two options: take it, or leave it. Many of the people who already had that plan still come to me and just pay cash, given that my fees aren’t all that high to start with. Others went and found new doctors (and some of them came back again, happily paying for my care.) And when potential new patients call asking if we take that insurance, we have to say, regretfully, no. We’ve m...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs