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Podiatry Coding & Billing Alert

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Patients Reluctant to Provide SSNs? Follow These Tips to Keep Billing on Track

Published on Wed Jul 25, 2012

Answer privacy concerns while keeping a firm payment policy in place.As the stories of identity theft seem to increase every day, patients may be reluctant to provide their Social Security Number (SSN) to your practice. But sometimes, you must have the patient's SSN in order to bill his insurance.So how much should you push, and just how critical is that nine-digit number? Follow these expert tips to keep you patients happy while still making sure your practice gets paid for services your providers perform.1. Collect Only When NecessaryExperts suggest that practices should not collect SSNs unless absolutely necessary. Some insurance companies still require SSNs for billing purposes (for example, some still use SSNs as patient ID numbers). But if the patient's insurance does not require the information on your claims, you should protect your practice by not collecting the SSN."Unless the person is on Medicare or in the armed forces, [...]
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