- ssalmich
Why an Annual Health Plan Audit is Critical to Your Success
Posted on Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Conducting an annual health plan audit is critical to the success of your practice. Over the life of a practice, providers and staff come and go and insurance companies add and terminate health plans. Keeping track of these changes is key to protecting your practice from legal issues and ensuring adequate cash flow.
Protecting Your Practice
When a new provider joins a practice, they must of course become credentialed and linked to the practice’s payor contracts in order to be considered “in-network.” However, most practices forget that they must notify their payors when a provider leaves their practice as well.
Payor contracts include language requiring a practice to send notification within a specific time frame when a provider terminates. Not only does notification of the termination date keep the practice compliant with these contracts, but it also protects the practice if the provider experiences malpractice issues or sanctions after leaving the practice.
Performing a health plan audit can ensure all payors are up to date on the providers currently associated with your practice.
Improving Front Desk Collections
A health plan audit is also crucial for front desk collections.
Turnover of front desk staff is not uncommon for any practice. It is vital that both your new and experienced staff members know the plans in which each provider participates. They also must be knowledgeable about the payors with whom your practice holds contracts.
Without a current roster of plan participation, the front desk will not know the appropriate co-pay or deductible to collect and your cash flow will bear the consequences.
An annual health plan audit helps your practice maintain compliance and improves cash flow.
EligibilityAdvocates’ maintenance and compliance services include an annual health plan audit. We can also provide health plan audit services on a standalone basis for clients.
The health plan audit process usually takes fewer than 30 days to complete.
Contact us today to learn more about how an annual health plan audit can protect both your practice’s liability and cash flow.
By Stephanie Salmich
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