According to CMS, the coordination of benefits (COB) applies to any patient who is covered by more than one health plan. Every time a patient with dual coverage visits for an appointment, providers and their staff must determine which insurer is primary at the front-end to avoid voided payments and wasted time following up with insurers.
Watch our fourth video below in our series on revenue cycle management processes for must-have COB instructions for your staff, and watch parts one, two, and three for additional insights.
Read the “Coordination of Benefits” video transcript below and subscribe to Madaket Health on YouTube.
Video Transcript:
Hi, I’m Devon with Madaket Health and on today’s Madaket Minute, we’re continuing our discussion about front-end revenue cycle processes that lead to poor revenue cycle management and what you can do to remedy these problems.
Today we are on tip number four: coordination of benefits. It is essential that your staff understands the payer order. If a patient presents with more than one payer, can they discern the payer order when Medicare is one of their payers? If the patient isn’t sure, your staff should be able to call each insurance company to verify. Understanding the correct order of payers means the more likely you’ll be paid for your services in a timely manner and avoid the hassle of voided payments and time spent on the phone sorting it out with the insurance carriers. It’s important to complete this step each and every time a patient visits.
I’ll be sharing tip number five next week as we wrap up this mini-series about front-end revenue cycle management. In the meantime, I’d love to hear any challenges or solutions that you’ve found to help improve your revenue cycle management.
