Almost every major insurance type has a main site that is just filled with free information for the Patient Access Representatives as well as their customers. Most companies are required to tell you about their requirements for billing, precertification, etc. Visiting their websites and going to the provider section should net you a billing manual and contact information to followup with claims, notify them for precertification and where the claims should be going. Getting the right information the first time is what we should strive to do. This will decrease our Accounts Receivable Days and bring the money in quicker. This will make the management people happy and may translate into more money for your pocket in the form of raises. I don’t know about you but getting paid is why I go to work.

Medicare has a great site with loads of information. There are several states that have more Medicare patients than others and if you are in one of them then going to the www.medicare.gov website is essential. Of course, those will Railroad Medicare have their own site at: http://www.palmettogba.com/palmetto/providers.nsf/DocsCat/Railroad%20Medicare~Resources

If you have a large military base in your area then you really should go to the Tricare Site for Your Area. There are three of them depending on your state. Tricare West is http://www.triwest.com/provider/. Tricare South is http://www.humana-military.com/south/provider/provider.asp. And finally Tricare North is http://www.tricare.mil/tma/providerinformation.aspx

Every state has their own Medicaid site. To Find yours you can go to your favorite search engine and type in your states name and then Medicaid or you can go to the Federal Medicaid site and you will get the Federal Guidelines that all states must follow and find the links for each of the states as well. The Federal site is at: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/home/medicaid.asp. To find all the state sites in one place go to this website: http://64.82.65.67/medicaid/states.html.

These should get you started and next month we will get you more information about other insurances!