The email read…

I’m a savvy online bill payer, but I must say this site has a few flaws that I would like to address. I was a little worried when I entered my account number and my information did not automatically fill. How do I know I’m hitting the right file for bill payment? Did I enter my account number wrong? According to my end, I did not..things just don’t..auto fill.

I would like to thank the patient that took the time to email us about his/her concerns. We are constantly trying to improve our website to better serve our clients and patients and all feedback that we receive is appreciated.

Our current application is intended to allow patients to securely make payments online without having to register for an account.

In order to pre-populate patient fields we would need to require the patient to register for an online account and login to a secure site. Otherwise any human or robot would be able to supply random patient account numbers and in return view confidential patient data which would be a violation of HIPAA policy.

The future of our online bill payment application is to develop a system which will require patient registration, but at this time it is not a service we offer.

We advocate never entering your credit card or personal data into a website without verifying that it is a secure source. We recommend doing exactly what this patient did, which is to contact us through our website form or by using the phone numbers listed on your statement if you have concerns about the security of the website.

The more your practice grows the more we grow with you.

Therefore it is our pleasure to introduce free advertising to our clients.

Everyday we are attempting to reach more patients, more physicians, and more medical billers by creating content to share with the world. As we continue to generate new content for our blog and social media campaigns we are building a community of people and creating the possibility for greater exposure for your practice.

Become a part of our growing network by advertising on our blog completely free of charge if you are currently a client of our medical billing services. To participate all you have to do is send an email with a 300 x 250 pixel image advertisement for your practice to ads [at] cdsindiana [dot] com.

We will run your ad along with our other clients in a rotating fashion in the sidebar of our blog as shown in the picture above for as long as you would like to have it displayed.

If you need help creating an advertisement image please feel free to ask us for help.

We are excited to announce a new web based reporting system for our clients!

This system will be a library of the monthly practice report(s) that we provide to you for your practice. This is a secure system that will provide you and any other person(s) you authorize, access to your practice information. Your practice report will be in an Adobe PDF format and a link will be provided to download a free copy of Adobe Reader if the user does not have a copy.

The system was develop to:

• Speed the distribution of practice data to you.
• Securely distribute data to all authorized person(s).
• Allow you to access historical data on your practice without having to store it at home, the office, etc.
• Eliminate printing and mailing cost.

We will act as your liaison with the insurance carrier. Many commercial insurance carriers will negotiate reimbursement fee schedules with providers. We will attempt to negotiate the contract on your behalf. We will review the contracts and provide you with all the information regarding the contract.

Ultimately, you are responsible for the insurance contract and you will need to approve and sign them, but our services will provide you with some piece of mind and remove much of the stress and time involved in negotiating.

Medical Credentialing Services

The credentialing process is combination of acquiring detailed information from each physician and the group practice (if necessary). The physician will be asked to provide us with all the essential information from his/her Curriculum Vitae (CV) as well as any previous practice affiliations and provider numbers. If we are credentialing a group practice the following information will be required: corporation information (FEIN, Date of Incorporation, etc), ownership, specialty(s), service locations, etc.

The physician/corporation information is entered into a database that will store and allow us to update it at any time. This database will automatically fill out many of government and commercial insurance contracts.

From start to finish the process will take from 60 to 180 days. Obviously this is dependent on the insurance carrier. One thing to keep in mind is that some carriers do not back date their application for participation in their network. Generally, the date they receive your application will be the date that you will become effective in their plan. For a new physician joining a group, it is imperative that this process start at least 90 days before the physician starts seeing patients to ensure that reimbursement will not be a problem.

If you would like help getting insurance contracts or getting your physician’s properly credentialed please use our RFB form to contact us.

One of the benefits of outsourcing your medical billing is having the ability to submit more of your claims electronically. Submitting your claims to insurance companies electronically allows your claims to be processed faster, to receive acknowledgements on them faster, and to resubmit your claims faster. Meaning your accounts receivable time will be reduced and you will get paid sooner.

Custom Data Services Insurance Services

We bill all major insurance companies and submit your claims electronically.

Our office uses a national clearing house to send patient claims daily. The clearing house will report back to us within 48 hours on the status of the claim; Accepted, Pending, Denied or Invalid. If the claim is denied or invalid, we will check the patient’s insurance information for accuracy by reviewing our records, contacting the physician’s office or contacting the patient/guarantor.

Many insurance carriers accept claims electronically. Unfortunately, there are some carriers that do not. These carriers will have their claims printed and mailed to them by our clearing house. And we will process the accepted, pending, denied, and invalid claims in the same manner that we process the claims that are sent electronically.

We submit all of our claims securely via a SSH certified file transfer protocol. This means that you don’t have to worry about how your claims reach their destination. All of our transfers are secure and encrypted which means your data is safe and HIPAA compliant.

To find out more about our insurance services or any of our services Contact Us to make a request for bid or to ask a specific question.

Building relationships with your patients is part of our job. We believe that your patient’s visit hasn’t ended until their claim is successfully adjudicated and they are 100% happy with their service. Maintaining that relationship during difficult processes such as collecting on delinquent accounts is also part of our job, and can be a more delicate process. Our experience has allowed us to create a very unique and customized service that will allow you to implement a pre-collection letter package and plan that you feel will best suit your patients, and help maintain that positive relationship.

With our pre-collection service you will be provided with the flexibility to decide the number of letters a patient will receive explaining what will happen to their account if it remains unpaid. You will have the authority to decide what action will be taken on which accounts.

How do we do this?

Custom Data Services Pre-Collection Services

Our pre-collection services allow you to use a customized approach in sending your patients a variety of letters explaining to them what will happen if their account remains unpaid. You will choose the number of letters a patient will receive, and the contents of that letter from an assortment of pre-made letters that we currently have available.

Every month we will also provide you with a list of patients whose balances are overdue so that you can make a determination of placing the account in collection or suspending the patient’s account from further correspondence.

The flexibility offered with our pre-collection service is what helps build strong relationships, because you know your patient and their situation better than we do, and you can help us make their entire experience better.

To find out more about our services Contact Us to make a request for bid or to ask a specific question.

Custom Collection Services, Inc.

CCSI has a long history of providing Northwest Indiana with exceptional service in the field of medical collections. CCSI was originally founded under the name Medical Dental Hospital Bureau of Lake County, Inc. in 1957 by Donald G Bradshaw and Elizabeth J Bradshaw. In 1990 The company was sold to Larry Mlynarcik and Juan Arroyo, the current owners of Custom Data Services, Inc. and began operating under the came Custom Collection Services Inc.

CCSI Collection Representatives

Custom Collection Services, Inc. is a fully licensed and bonded collection agency that has representatives with over 85 years of combined collection experience. All of their account representatives are fully trained in the Fair Debt Collection Practices and HIPAA Privacy Acts.

Collections as we know can be a tough business, but we realize that building a feeling of goodwill and maintaining positive relationships with the debtor and you is the best way to collect effectively and to insure the equity of your brand.

CCSI Collection Services

CCSI has a fully computerized system featuring the lasted collection software. Initial notices are sent to debters within 48 hours of arriving at CCSI . Follow up notices are subsequently sent every 30 days after the initial notice is mailed. CCSI uses a variety of multicolored collection letters to help debtors recognize the status of their accounts.

CCSI ‘s daily efforts in collecting your bad debt are assisted by the records available from Custom Data Services, credit reports, and other consumer data to locate and secure pyaments.

CCSI does not require you to have a minimum number of accounts or balance. And they understand that the sooner you accounts are turned over to them the better they can maximize your recovery percentage.

After 90 days, unpaid balances of a value greater that $50.00 are reported to the credit bureau.

CCSI Collection Fees

Custom Collection Services works on a very competitive fee schedule. All accounts placed with CCSI are collected on a contingency fee basis. If they do not collect money on an account, they do not charge you any fees. If you approve legal action on an account, they pay all court costs and attorney fees.

All collections due you are remitted following the end of each month. A statement is included listing each individual account payment and the fee due to CCSI .

During the process of payment retrieval in is inevitable that some accounts will need to be adjusted. In order to assure the accuracy of our collection process we audit our accounts monthly to reconcile unidentified and duplicate payments by providing you with a credit balance refunding service.

Our Credit Balance Refunding Services Include

Unidentified Payments

Patients and insurance companies will send payments without proper documentation making it impossible to identify the account for which the payment needs to be posted too. During our payment retrieval process we mark all payments that are unidentified with a “U”. Any payments marked with a “U” are then processed by your customer service representative where they will attempt to contact the insurance company or payer to help identify the payment. If we are unable to successfully identify where the payment belongs and the payer has no current open accounts for services rendered by you will we refund the payment to them.

Duplicate Payments

Another common occurrence during the payment retrieval process is the collection of duplicate payments. Patient’s will occasionally pay their balances before their insurance company has applied benefits creating either a duplicate payment or overpayment on their account. During our audit process we identify accounts with duplicate payments or overpayments and refund the balance to the patient.

Payment retrieval is an undeniably important part of the medical claims life cycle. And it is our philosophy that the more payment options you offer the more you will collect. In a previous post we mentioned our latest service addition which was the implementation of online bill pay, but that is only one of the many payment options that are available through our medical billing service.

Our Medical Payment Retrieval Options Include:

Mail in Payments

Our primary source of payment retrieval is your standard mail in payment option. Enclose the top portion of your statement along with a check or your credit card information and we will process the payment as soon as we get it in the mail. This has been and will be the primary payment retrieval method of our company for years. Patients are comfortable and familiar with mailing in their payments.

Phone in Payments

Our customer service staff is friendly and waiting to help your patients answer questions and make payments. Over the phone we can accept credit card payments from Visa, Discover, and MasterCard. We are looking into adding American Express because you can never have to many accepted forms of payment.

Walk in Payments

Monday through Friday our office is open between the hours of 8:00 am and 4:00pm. We always have a customer service representative available at our front counter to take payments in cash, with a credit card, or with a check.

Online Payments

Our latest advancement is our online medical bill pay option that allows your patients to make payments online through a secure web portal. The website is secured and accepts payment by credit card, electronic check, or directly from you patients savings account.

Electronic Payments

We accept electronic payments from the major insurance providers such as Medicare, Medicaid, and United Healthcare.

However when it comes to your practice processing your mail in a timely fashion just means sitting down and doing one more task that is keeping you away from the most important part of your practice; your patients. Which is why one of the services we offer to our clients is mail processing.

What is our mail processing service?

On a daily basis we go to 3 different local post offices to retrieve the previous days mail for our clients. When the mail reaches our office it is opened, sorted, and delivered to your practice’s representative. From there your representative will post your payments, research returned mail and bad addresses, file inquiries on rejected claims, or separate the parcels that need to be delivered to you and place them in our blue bag to be delivered to your office with our medical delivery service.

Having a mail processing service isn’t going to save your practice hundreds of hours a year, but the time spent sorting and delivering your mail will continously add up and will ultimately be a distraction to your business.

We believe that our medical billing service is more than just adjudicating claims, it is about providing the small services necessary to help make your practice more efficient.