Re: RADSAFE digest 1785

[denison.8@osu.edu (Eric Denison)]

>
>Does anyone have experience with HCFA certification for Medicare?
>
My wife works in a medical office in Accounts Receivable, and I hear about
Medicare problems all the time.  Best advice I can give is to turn around
and run -- it's a trap.  You'll spend scads of time and money and get
nothing but grief in return.  If the paperwork required to get certified is
half as bad as the paperwork to get claims paid, you'll regret ever
considering it.  You'll end up drowning in extra forms, only to get
reimbursed less than it costs to cover the costs of seeing many of the
patients.  As a militery facility, you may not have to worry about turning
a profit (though your finance department will still hate it), but you'll
still have to deal with the irate patients who can't understand the
Medicare billing system or any of the other paperwork...

In short, you might be better off just seeing a very limited number of
qualifying elderly patients for free.

End of rant.

Eric

J. Eric Denison
1729 Penworth Drive
Columbus, OH 43229-5216
ph. (614) 433-0387
e-mail: denison.8@osu.edu