The Importance of Verifying Benefits
Verifying patient benefits are important to your practice. You can be seeing the patients for weeks and not even knowing that they are not covered or you need pre-authorizations. That is so much money lost. Are you working for nothing????
When the patient comes in for the first consult, make sure you get a copy of their insurance card and possibly their driver's license. Then verify their benefits, ALL PLANS ARE DIFFERENT. If you get 2 patients with Aetna doesn't mean they are the same benefits. Verifying benefits are even more important because of Obama care. You need to let your patient's know there's Co-pays, Deductibles and Out of pocket expenses, so they are not surprised. Yes, sometimes you will loose those patients, but at least they know you were honest with them and didn't send them a huge bill that you would loose them already.
There are so many ways to verify benefits, you can go online (most insurance carriers have websites to verify), you can call their insurance provider line on the back of their cards and get an IVR line and then speek to a representative so you get all the benefits. We do this when you sign up for our services.
