Traditional Medicare supplement billing

[RetMD21]

I am dealing with my mothers hospital and physician bills and some of the offices bill for the part not covered by medicare despite the fact that I have EOBs indicating that payment was made from both medicare and the supplement. The hospitals are the worst.

My understanding from a couple of billers is that Medicare knows about the supplement and automatically forwards payment information. I had assumed that when the Medicare payment came the billing department submitted the balance of allowable charges to the supplement.

Anyway I have been asked to email copies of EOBs to billing companies which doesn't seem very secure. The people at the supplement company tell me that the offices could just call themselves. I get the impression that the billers just don't have a good system for matching payments received with accounts. The true balances on all these accounts is 0.

I have finally learned to let the accounts age since this solves some problems. I am not excited about doing this uncompensated work especially after being on hold for 40 minutes on one account last week. I got an actual check number from the supplement company in lieu of emailing an EOB.

I want to pay the hospital/physicians what is due but I am tires of wasting time. Mom is almost 90 and in no condition to participate in this. She is also not in a position to need to worry about her credit rating.

What are others doing about this?

 

[braumeister]

Unfortunately, your suspicion is correct. Many simply don't have good accounting systems. As long as you gave them the supplemental information up front, they should be able to reconcile things. Since you have the EOBs from the supplemental, that indicates that you're in the clear. But I found that sometimes I had to go into a hospital's billing office and sit down with someone to go over my mother's bills and EOBs one at a time. Annoying, but at least it answers the question "What will you do all day?"

 

[Momcpa]

We had a document from the insurance co that they paid the balance on a hospital bill for my husband. It was the EXACT amount the hospital said we owed. They kept sending us end of the month statements. I kept calling and disputing it. They would say 'don't pay, we will figure it out'. They didn't/couldn't. We went in person with a copy of the insurance statement indicating payment. They said don't pay, we will figure it out. They didn't. Finally we went in person (3rd time) and said we needed to speak with a supervisor. And we would wait until they made the charge correctly a zero balance and we needed a copy saying so. They found that they HAD received the payment and applied it to our account but in a way that it didn't show up to the initial billing clerk. Anyhow we waited while they applied it and got a zero balance statement for our files. It took months of phone calls and multiple in-person visits.
Must be confusing accounting software!!! Good luck.

 

[momoftwo]

Arghhh.
I feel for you.
We have a special needs adult child who has Medicare and Medicaid.
Fighting billing problems for her is my new FT job, having retired lasr July from a FT job that actually paid me something.

 

[REWahoo]

Mom is almost 90 and in no condition to participate in this. She is also not in a position to need to worry about her credit rating.

At age 90 she is highly unlikely to be impacted by anything associated with her credit rating. Trying to protect that for her would be the last of my concerns if I was you.

I'd wait them out for another 2-3 months before I got too concerned about helping them improve their accounting processes.

 

[audreyh1]

We plan on using Boomer Benefits to run down this kind of crap.

 

[REWahoo]

We plan on using Boomer Benefits to run down this kind of crap.

Exactly.

 

[aja8888]

My Humana agent, who sold us our Sup policies, handles all the mixed up stuff. But it's rare when it happens. And we have used up a couple of million $$$ in claims in the last 10 years we have been on Medicare.

 

[RetMD21]

Thanks all. I had no idea that an agent might help with these things. Her supplement is a group policy through her former employer. I have already learned to let the accounts age. I think I'll be a little less helpful to the billers in the future.

 

[RetMD21]

For one account I emailed a copy of an EOB then told the doctor by text that his billing company was re billing a paid amount and failing to bill a new charge that was actually due. That resolved.

For another company I initially agreed to fax them an EOB since it is a little more secure. I ended up messaging the supplement company and getting the check number and date. I called the billing company they took the information and told me that they would look in to it. I think I am going to stop playing the game and tell them to call the supplement.

Helping the billing companies out isn't getting me anywhere.