Hello, my name is Kendall Quisenberry and I am the President of Reimbursement Counselors.
Welcome to the first official entry into my Reimbursement Blog! Reimbursement Counselors is a consulting firm that offers a full line of services to our healthcare clients. Periodically, I hope to provide you with key insights, tips, and little nuggets of information you can use to help your facility achieve its goals. We invite you to take a moment and subscribe to the blog through the link at the bottom of this page.
Our Mission is to help our clients to better serve the healthcare needs of their communities by providing them with best-in-class advice and service through our team of experienced and innovative consultants
We invite your comments, feedback and questions regarding the issues discussed in the blog. Our first issue is a very important one and is included below.
Medicare Bad Debt Policy Change
TrailBlazer Health Enterprises has institued a new policy with regards to Medicare Bad Debts. The policy requires that Medicare Bad Debts be returned from any collection agencies that are utilized prior to inclusion on the Medicare Cost Report. This means that, if you write-off a Medicare Bad Debt after 120 days and then send to a collection agency, the bad debt can not be claimed at the write off date under the new policy. If you are not having accounts returned from your agencies timely, now is the time to request the agencies return those accounts periodically to you. Please note that Medicare and non-Medicare accounts of like amounts should always be treated the same; therefore, the frequency of the return of the accounts from the collection agency should be consistent across payor classes.
The knowledge of this new policy change will be particularly important for hospitals with upcoming year ends from 9/30 to 12/31 that currently are not having accounts returned from their agencies. If you want to claim Medicare Bad Debts on your 2007 cost report, you must obtain confirmation of the return of the account by the last day of your fiscal year; otherwise, the accounts will not be allowable until they are returned which may fall in the 2008 fiscal year or later.
This new policy should not effect duel-eligible (Medicare/Medicaid) patient claims where Medicaid has not paid the full amount of the deductible and coinsurance. The duel eligible patients with unpaid deductible and coinsurance amounts should be deemed indigent under your indigent policy upon receipt of the Medicaid RA. These accounts should not be sent to a collection agency. They are eligible to be claimed as a Medicare Bad Debt on the date the patient account is adjusted to reflect the indigency determination.
The new policy is posted on TrailBlazer Health Enterprises web site. To see the post click here. You will also need to click on “I Accept” at the bottom of the page.
We have developed new strategies that may help you recover any reimbursement lost due to the implementation of this new policy. Some of these strategies do have strict filing deadlines (i.e. statutes of limitation), so it is important to act quickly upon action by TrailBlazer Health Enterprises or other Fiscal Intermediaries.
Thanks for taking the time to view this first entry. We sincerely hope this information helps you. Please do not forget to subscribe via the link at the bottom of the page to ensure you get future entries timely.
Sincerely,
Kendall Quisenberry
President
Reimbursement Counselors
(972) 403-9910
