Practice Management Alert

Plus, Humana ranks as fastest payer. In May the Indiana State Medical Association filed a request with state regulators asking for an investigation into payment delays with WellPoint subsidiary Anthem. The Ohio State Medical Association filed a similar request last October. Both medical associations claim that providers in their states have been facing payment issues with Anthem since late 2007. The complaints include delayed claims payment, poor customer service, and payment errors such as checks being sent to the patients or even the wrong physician. The prompt-pay law in Ohio requires payers to pay clean claims within 30 days unless additional documentation is required. Comparably, the law in Indiana requires electronic claims to be paid within 15 days and paper claims within 45 days. Practices in both states have reported delays of several months in claims payments from Anthem. The problems have been caused by Anthem's adoption of a new [...]