Mental health billing can be a challenging and frustrating process for many providers. You must deal with complex coding, documentation, and reimbursement rules that vary by payer and state. You also have to balance the needs of your clients, who may have limited resources and insurance coverage, with the financial health of your practice. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the administrative burden of mental health billing, you’re not alone. Many mental health professionals struggle to get paid for their services and lose time and money. This can affect your quality of care, professional satisfaction, and personal well-being.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are proven strategies that can help you streamline your mental health billing process and increase your revenue. In this article, we’ll share with you 7 of these strategies that can help you improve your billing efficiency, accuracy, and compliance. By following these tips, you’ll be able to reduce your stress, boost your cash flow, and focus more on what matters most: helping your clients.
1. Use a specialized mental health billing software
Mental health billing software is a tool that automates business and administrative processes for mental health practices. It helps mental health providers to create, store, access, and protect patients’ information, as well as appointment scheduling, claims reimbursement, and e-Prescribing. It also offers customized intake forms and specialized codes that make the patient information collection, filing, and reimbursement processes accurate for behavioral practices.
Some mental health billing software examples are TherapyNotes, SimplePractice, Exym, Kareo, athena One, and Dr Chrono.
Using specialized mental health billing software can benefit mental health practices by saving time, reducing errors, increasing revenue, improving compliance, and enhancing patient satisfaction.
2. Verify insurance eligibility and benefits before each session
Verifying insurance eligibility and benefits is a process of checking if a patient has active coverage for mental health services and what are the specific terms and conditions of their plan. It involves gathering the necessary information from the patient and the provider, calling the customer service number of the insurance company, determining eligibility and benefits, asking questions, and repeating the process as needed.
Some of the questions to ask are:
- Is the patient eligible for outpatient mental health services?
- Is the provider in-network or out-of-network?
- What are the copayments, coinsurance, deductibles, and out-of-pocket maximums?
- Are there any prior authorization, notification, or referral requirements?
- Are there any limitations or exclusions on service type, frequency, or duration?
Verifying insurance eligibility and benefits before each session can help mental health practices avoid claim denials, reduce administrative costs, increase cash flow, improve patient satisfaction, and comply with insurance policies.
3. Document your services accurately and thoroughly
Documenting your services records details a patient’s mental health condition, treatment, and progress. It is an essential component of mental health practices that can boost the quality and delivery of services and meet legal obligations. It involves using core and additional modules that cover different aspects of assessment, care plan, review, and transfer/discharge. The documentation should reflect the need for care/services provided and be clear, consistent, and coherent.
Documenting your services accurately and thoroughly can help mental health practices avoid audit risks, support clinical decision-making, justify reimbursement claims, communicate with other providers, and protect patient rights.
4. Code your services correctly and consistently
- 90791 for psychiatric diagnostic evaluation
- 90832, 90834, and 90837 for psychotherapy of different lengths
- 90839 and 90840 for psychotherapy for crisis
- 90846 and 90847 for family or couples psychotherapy
- 90853 for group psychotherapy
Add-on codes can indicate additional or supplementary services, such as 90785 for interactive complexity, 96127 for brief emotional/behavioral assessment, and 96160 for administering a patient-focused health risk assessment instrument. Coding your services correctly and consistently can help mental health practices avoid claim rejections, audits, penalties, and underpayments and demonstrate the value and quality of their services.
5. Submit your claims promptly and regularly
- Avoiding missing filing deadlines and losing revenue
- Reducing the risk of errors, denials, and rejections
- Improving the tracking and monitoring of the status of your claim
- Enhancing the communication and relationship with the payers and patients
- Increasing the efficiency and productivity of your billing process
6. Follow up on your claims and payments diligently
- Using electronic methods such as payer portals or automated phone systems to track the status and payments of your claim
- reviewing your remittance advice (RA) and explanation of benefits (EOB) statements to verify the accuracy and completeness of the payments
- Resolving any issues or discrepancies with the payers or patients
- maintaining accurate and updated records of your claims and payments
- reducing the accounts receivable (AR) days and improving the cash flow
- identifying and correcting any errors, denials, or underpayments
- preventing or appealing any audits or penalties
- improving the communication and satisfaction with the payers and patients
- optimizing the performance and profitability of your billing process
7. Review your billing performance and identify areas for improvement
- increasing the accuracy and timeliness of your claims and payments
- reducing the errors, denials, and rejections
- enhancing the compliance and quality of your services
- improving the communication and satisfaction with the payers and patients
- maximizing the revenue and profitability of your practice
FAQs
Mental health billing can be challenging due to various factors, such as complex and varied services and codes, detailed documentation and pre-authorization requirements, low reimbursement rates and high claim denials, and frequent insurance policy and regulation changes.
Successful mental health billing strategies include verifying patient insurance information, using accurate billing codes, documenting everything, filing claims on time, following up on pending claims, accounting for payments and denials, and handling rejections, denials, appeals, and corrections.
Mental health software can help with mental health billing by automating and streamlining the billing processes, such as verifying insurance information, generating claims, tracking payments and denials, and creating reports. Mental health software can also integrate with other tools and systems to improve workflow and efficiency.
Final Analysis
Mental health billing is a complex and challenging process that requires careful attention to detail and compliance with various regulations. However, mental health providers can improve billing efficiency and accuracy, reduce denials and rejections, and increase revenue by following proven strategies. These include verifying eligibility and benefits before each session, using appropriate codes and modifiers for different services and diagnoses, documenting services accurately and thoroughly, submitting claims electronically and promptly, tracking claims status and following up on unpaid or denied claims, reviewing billing reports and identifying areas for improvement, and outsourcing billing tasks to a professional service if needed. By implementing these strategies, mental health providers can streamline their billing process and focus more on providing quality care to their clients.