Improve Mental Health Billing Revenue Collections

Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and therapists provide unique services from those offered by other healthcare providers. The standardized health exams and tests are comparatively easy to document and code when a patient visits a GP. Although the amount of time spent with patients changes, it is only by a small amount.

That is not the situation when it comes to mental health professionals. Each mental health patient has a unique set of symptoms that necessitates a tailored treatment approach, including the length of treatment. The suggested therapy differs based on the patient's age and desire, location, and mental health history.

Insurance companies have sought to standardize mental health billing by defining a patient's maximum number of mental health treatments, treatment length, and several patient consultations per day or week. However, clinicians have a continuing issue in assuring accuracy in insurer pre-authorizations in mental health billing.

Furthermore, mental health services are typically smaller group practices with no specialized revenue cycle management tools. The obligation for addressing mental health Medical Billing Company denials usually falls to the office administration or the provider.

4 Ways to Improve Medical Billing Collections in Mental Health

Do you collect fewer than 95% of claims as a mental health service owner in the first submission? Based on our expertise with mental health billing, we believe you should be doing a lot better.

When combined with tenacity and a thorough understanding of billing, the following mental health billing ideas will minimize claim denials and increase income in your business within weeks.

Keep track of the patient appointments weekly.

The usual procedure is seeing a patient once a week or every five to six days. Seeing a patient numerous times a day or several times a week is considered excessive by most payers.

A patient who needs therapy many times per week should be assessed for a higher level of care (e.g., inpatient admission). In unusual circumstances, however, contact the insurance carrier. You might be able to receive special authorization for more than one service for the same patient on the same day.

Be diligent with your documents before submitting a claim.

Claim denials are expected for specific mental health billing codes and patient groups. Billing codes such as 90837 (individual psychotherapy), 99215 (established patient visit), and 90853 (group psychotherapy) are examples (group psychotherapy).

Ensure that any claims made under these regulations are backed by adequate documentation verification of the services provided. Timesheets, session notes, the location and time of service, and written patient permission (or family consent) to the treatment plan should all be included in the documentation.

While the ideas above are particular to mental health Medical billing companies, you must also follow the general revenue cycle management rules. 

These are some of them:

Before the appointment, accurate pre-insurance eligibility checks are performed. To reduce patient no-shows, send appointment reminders to patients via different modalities. To avoid surprise invoicing, patients should be informed about their financial obligations ahead of time.