Primary Care Coding Alert

Medicare contractors must pay clean claims within 30 days, but private payers vary.It's a familiar story for some medical practices: You submit a clean claim but still haven't collected three months later. Do you have any recourse? Yes, thanks to the prompt pay laws that each payer must follow when paying your medical claims.Verify Which Laws Apply to Your Practice Each state requires private insurers to pay all clean claims within a certain time frame. If the insurer does not pay the claim in a timely manner, then the payer is subject to paying interest on the charges owed to the practice (or directly to the beneficiary). Most time frames range from 15 to 45 working days, with 30 days about the average."If you are a little adventurous, you could search for your state law on the Internet," says Joseph Lamm, office manager with Stark County Surgeons, Inc. in Massillon, [...]