Practice Management Alert

Check Your EOBs for 6 Must-Have Items

A quick review of your explanation of benefits (EOBs) should be an automatic part of your payment posting routine. You can analyze the payments and denials on EOBs to learn more about your coding, billing and fee schedule, but first you need to make sure the basics are right. Any experienced biller can tell you that small EOB errors pop up all the time - and many will cause hassle and cost you money if you don't spot and correct them. Here's a quick list of what to check for, provided by Steve Verno, NREMTP, CMBSI, director of reimbursement at Emergency Medicine Specialists in Hollywood, Fla. -Correct tax ID and payment address.
-Correct name of patient and practice account number.
-Correct date of service. -All charged procedure codes  listed. Carriers can fail either intentionally or by mistake to list a certain code you billed.
-Accurate charges. Make sure the carrier hasn't adjusted your charges for bogus reasons.
-Correct contractual adjustment. Sometimes payers will try to sneak a higher percentage discount by you and hope you don't notice.