Wiki Billing secondary insurance VS writing off as small balance

[brendaarave]

My director has decided that if the primary insurance processes a claim and leaves less than $5.00 to the secondary insurance, that instead of billing the secondary insurance she would rather write it off as a small balance. Is that OK? I am having a hard time seeing any verbiage to back up this type of scenario.

We currently do not send a patient statement for anything less than $5.00 and then it is written off as a small balance once it is more than 120 days old.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Cavalier40]

I am not a lawyer, and this would be an excellent question to bring to the lawyer panel at Healthcon.

I have worked for DME billing companies that had a blanket policy to write off balances under $5 even when Medicare has paid.

It should be ok as a policy to write off small balances as long as the write off is not used as a quid pro quo to induce the patient to seek treatment at your practice or obtain referrals of other patients to your practice. However this would only apply after all available insurances have been billed. I would say that you should bill the secondary.

Hope this helps.