Payment Posting
The Payment Posting staff is responsible for posting, all payments, adjustments, withhold amounts, and rejection codes supplied by the insurance carriers. Additionally, any other information supplied by the insurance carriers or third party payers, either electronically or manually, is also posted to the patient accounts in accordance with the information on the patient’s EOB. It is important that the accounts are accurately posted so that payments are allocated properly. Inaccurate posting can result in incorrect balances billed to patients.
Here are 3 critical bullet points to be noted about Payment Posting and payers.
- When feasible, set up electronic remittance with payers.
Staff members only need to work the exception report, with such a remittance process. It?s crucial that payer contracts and fee schedules are built into the system, so payment posting can be more accurate.
- Medical practices and facilities should establish an automatic small balance write-off amount.
This will help in saving time in cleaning up small balance accounts, and may actually save money (by avoiding re-billing, postage, staff time, etc). Many hospitals use a guideline of $40-$100, while physician practices are lower, at $10-$20.00. Don?t set your amount too high or too low.
- The total payments received should be matched to the total payments posted, per batch, in the system. Payment posting staff are responsible for remit work queues to review what did not post due to problems. Balancing electronically posted files and resolving errors must be done prior to closing the batch. No payments will populate on patient accounts until the entire batch is closed. Zero payments, partial pays, credit balance or duplicate payments and low pays should be identified to determine if they are a result of an incorrect payment, overpayment or a denial. Such accounts should be worked in a denial management process.
A credit balance is an overpayment or payment received in error or a payment received with a corresponding debit or charge. Credits must be resolved in a timely manner by refunding or offsetting to the proper payer, posting to the proper charge, or reconciling payments to associated charges. Unresolved credits are stored for a defined period of time and then handled as per policy.