Golden Nuggets: He who has gold rules!
April 1st, 2008 . by Kathy Mills Chang
And gold to me equates to “cash”. Moolah! Bread! Dough! Dinero! Bird in the hand..worth two in the bush! Cash is King!
Why, then, do you think that as a profession, we’re so willing to extend credit to complete strangers (ok, relatively complete strangers) with no collateral and wait to be paid until some distant third-party insurer decides to pay us?
After 25 years in the profession, most of it behind a desk billing and collecting insurance, I’m more convinced than ever that without balance we can’t survive. I’ve watched over these years as doctors with all the eggs in one kind of basket, like Personal Injury, or Managed Care, have seen it dwindle to the point where I get a call saying, “throw me a life preserver!”. It breaks my heart to watch it.
Even though I’m known in the profession as the “coding queen” and “reimbursement goddess” (both titles I’m honored and humbled to hold), I still believe that balance is the name of the game. In this blog, we’ll explore all the options for reimbursement, and look at the various angles and ideas which we need to explore to achieve perfect balance. Insurance can and should be a part of practice. However, building your cash profit centers, like nutrition, pillows, braces, massage, decompression, spinal pelvic stabilizers, and most importantly, wellness care, will help assure that your practice will always have a cash foundation. What if we could call the money we get from insurance “bonus checks”? Strive to meet your monthly overhead with that money collected over the counter. In this blog, we’ll look at all the ways to do that, insurance billing and collection secrets, how documentation figures into the mix, compliance tidbits, staff training and more.
Reimbursement really does rock. Just ask anyone I’ve ever worked for about the Kathy Dance. Remember that obnoxious little dance Pee-Wee Herman did on his Saturday Morning program. Well something like that! When a check I’d been fighting especially hard for made it in the door, I would do the Kathy Dance around the office, and my doctor always knew it was a win.
Stand tall comrades! And visit back here often for fun and frolic in reimbursement land.
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8 Comments »
8 Responses to “Golden Nuggets: He who has gold rules!”
Nice writing style. I will come back to read more posts from you.
Susan Kishner
Congrats on the new blog! Can’t wait to read more!
Awesome! Can’t wait read more!
Nice “blog” Little Sis”, I never even knew you could dance, wow, and for money too??? Congratulations on your continued succes, but you have always been an achiever. Keep up the good work. To those out there in the industry, if your on Kathy’s page, you are where you need to be!!!!
She’s the best, you can’t do any better than that.
Careful Kathy! Don’t they have a name for someone who gets paid to dance…
This is excellent… I’ve always appreciate working with you, I also appreciate and respect your opinion. Being that I’m a little bit dyslexic I sometimes find it hard to read blogs, websites and newsletters… yours is different.
You’re awesome!
Great to read your thoughts. I look forward to your further posts.
what are the documentation requirements for massage therapy in a DC office to improve reimbursement and avoid denials?