Anesthesia Billing and Collection Services
Our competitors say they understand the practice of anesthesia however few, if any, have a full-time former anesthesiologist on their staff who has first-hand experience in managing a busy anesthesia department. The clinical and business experience gained by running an anesthesia department has resulted in Anesthesia Experts having extensive expertise on the current problems affecting anesthesia groups. Anesthesia claims have the highest Medicare denial rate (19.8%) compared to other specialties which average a denial rate of 6.3%. There are three major reasons why Anesthesia Experts clients’ denial rates are less than half of the national average! First and foremost, and what separates us from our competition, is that we have a full-time former anesthesiologist on staff to argue denials or low reimbursement issues with the insurance companies. This is important because medical directors of insurance companies will not talk with non-physicians concerning billing issues. However, if one of our clients claims is denied our Anesthesia Experts physician can explain and justify the fee to the insurance company’s medical director. This aspect is important because it can reverse a denial and our physician has the authority to stop further similar denials from occurring. This education by an anesthesiologist is necessary because medical directors are primary care physicians who know little, if anything, about anesthesia and/or pain management. There is a great difference between knowing the anesthesia billing codes and truly understanding the clinical reasoning for selecting a particular type of anesthetic. The second reason for our lower denial rate is Anesthesia Experts educates all anesthesia providers on the correct legal documentation methods to guarantee reimbursement. The third reason is Anesthesia Experts has letters, written by our attorneys, quoting actual case laws which cover the most common denial reasons including medical necessity, coverage exclusions, and timely filings requirements.
Our competitors say they know how to code for pain management but we have someone who has performed thousands of these procedures and thereby knows the medical indications for the procedures along with the correct billing codes. The bottom line is Anesthesia Experts knows why and how a procedure is performed and not just how to bill it. Our competitors say they know how to provide practice management for anesthesia groups however few have on staff members with a Masters of Business Administration. Instead, they learn by trial and error. Anesthesia Experts has an anesthesiologist with a Master of Business Administration degree so he can talk to the insurance companies on both a medical and business level instead of just a medical level. This degree helps eliminate the huge advantage of understanding business that the insurance companies claim to possess over the busy practicing anesthesiologist. Anesthesia Experts would prefer to pay for additional graduate business degrees rather than have our clients pay for our tuition at the school of hard knocks. Our competitors say they can assist with business development or strategic planning however, no one on their staff has a PhD in healthcare marketing. This marketing expertise is extremely important because the quickest method to increase revenue is not adding services but instead improving the marketing of the services that are currently available.