Pay the Piper AND the Doctor

Does the quality of your physician’s care depend on the quality of your insurance’s medical billing and coding? When we’re ready to “face the music” or “pay the piper” by visiting the doctor we expect to give the co-pay and leave the major financial responsibility to insurance providers, including Medicare. That means, as patients, we expect a lengthy visit by a doctor who has been well-paid for such treatment.

The unfortunate situation for most physicians is that unless a patient will pay the billed expenses out of pocket, it is unlikely that the physician will receive comparable pay for services provided.

Physician’s fees cover increasing practice expenses, costly medical malpractice insurance, and personal expenses. Many insurance companies compensate physicians 10-20% less than Medicare, although Medicare reimbursement rates were never meant to be used as a guide for private insurance companies. Perhaps physicians suffer as much as patients when it comes to medical insurance.

Pennsylvania Medical Society suggests that several ways for physicians to maximize revenue are to collect co-payments and balances due when the patient is in the office and to use automatic payment posting wherever possible which is not only efficient, but it's typically more accurate than manual posting.

Although MSNBC has reported that doctors caring for the elderly and the disabled will see a 5 percent cut in reimbursement rates when they treat Medicare patients in 2008, the government will pay physicians more to counsel patients on ways to improve their health.