Electronic Medical Billing - Best Practice

Published: Thursday, 14 March 2013 01:00

The beauty of medical electronic billing is that once your bill has been successfully submitted you know it has reached the insurer and is ready for payment.

This is because the Healthcode clearing system will identify missing or incorrect information, prompting you to correct the bill before re-submitting it. With all the information present and correct, the bill is validated automatically by the online system and passed directly to the insurer for payment. By contrast, when an incomplete paper bill reaches its intended recipient, there may be a lengthy delay while the insurer contacts you to obtain the missing information.

No matter how you submit it, it’s important that every medical bill clearly shows the recipient what they have been charged and why. This means the medical bill can be settled without delay and ensures your practice looks professional and efficient. To help, Healthcode has produced best practice guidelines which have been endorsed by all the major insurers.

When it comes to submitting e-bills through the Healthcode system, you will always need the following data to hand. Use this checklist to ensure faster invoice processing and faster payment or download our invoice templates for insurers or self-pay patients.

 About the Invoice

  • Invoice number
  • Invoice date

About you

  • Provider number or professional number
  • Billing address
  • Payment details

Patient Information

  • Name
  • Date of birth
  • Address
  • Insurance company
  • Insurance policy number
  • Diagnosis code and description (not all insurers require this)
  • If you are not the lead consultant, you will need to provide the name of the consultant in charge of the overall patient care including their provider / professional number.

Treatment information

  • The type of care delivered e.g. in-patient, out-patient, day case, consulting room or other
  • Date of treatment
  • Service delivered Procedure code and description if applicable
  • Total amount