Category: Healthcare Credentialing

Payer Enrollment – The First Step In The Revenue Cycle

Payer enrollment services help healthcare organizations to unravel the complex process of credentialing providers and enrolling them in payer networks.

Payer enrollment is the process of a provider joining a health insurance plan’s network. The process includes requesting participation in a payer network, completing credentialing requirements, submitting documents to the payer, and signing a contract.

Healthcare organizations must ensure payer enrollment is complete for each of their providers in order to get paid for delivering care. Payers will not reimburse healthcare organizations for services rendered by a provider who is not officially part of a plan’s network.

Failing to complete the payer enrollment process in a timely manner will also lead to an uptick in on-hold claims — and in some cases claim denials.

But completing payer enrollment is an oftentimes long and complex process for most healthcare organizations and the need to streamline and improve the process is increasing as providers face an increasingly competitive marketplace.

As healthcare organizations find their provider workforce frequently changing, medical service staff are finding their systems difficult to keep current. As a consequence, the organization’s bottom line may suffer as more claims are placed on hold.

For busy medical services staff or patient financial experts, outsourcing payer enrollment services to a third-party can help. Payer enrollment services allow organizations to streamline the process, manage the wide range of payer requirements and processes, and stay abreast of expiring enrollments and credentials.

STREAMLINING PAYER ENROLLMENT TO SAVE TIME, MONEY

Payer enrollment is a complex process oftentimes taking several months to complete.

Payers typically require between 90 to 120 days to complete provider credentialing alone, causing the entire enrollment process to span months on average. Smaller plans with limited resources may take even longer to process provider enrollment.

Healthcare organizations can make matters worse by failing to collect all the necessary documents for credentialing and engaging in duplicative efforts to complete payer enrollment. As a result, organizations are likely to face delays in claims reimbursement (and possibly an increase in denials) when workflow inefficiencies add time to an already lengthy process.

Outsourcing payer enrollment to a third party can help healthcare organizations streamline provider credentialing and health plan participation. Through payer enrollment services, these external resources assist with gathering the necessary documents for credentialing and enrollment and tracking payer responses to provider participation requests.

A streamlined payer enrollment process means that providers can start seeing patients and billing for services sooner.

NAVIGATING PAYER RULES AND REQUIREMENTS

Healthcare organizations work with dozens of payers at once, and their providers must be enrolled with each insurance company for timely reimbursement.

However, private and public payers do not have a standardized process for payer enrollment. Medical services staff must understand each payer’s rules and requirements when it comes to a plan’s enrollment.

For example, Humana requires providers to use a service from the Council for Affordable Quality Care (CAQH), called CAQH Proview, to submit credentialing information. Providers also need to have a Drug Enforcement Agency and/or Controlled Dangerous Substances certificate.

Similarly, Aetna requires providers to use the CAQH Proview platform. But the payer also uses quality standards set by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) to evaluate provider credentials.

Navigating the web of unique payer enrollment rules and forms can bog down the entire process at a healthcare organization, causing a boost in on-hold claims.

Employing a third party for payer enrollment services can help healthcare organizations maneuver payer rules and requirements. Payer enrollment services vendors should work with each payer a healthcare organization contracts with to understand each payer’s unique rules, forms, and processes for adding a provider to a health plan’s network.

STAYING ON TOP OF REENROLLMENT

Despite getting each provider in a healthcare organization enrolled in the right payer networks, the payer enrollment process is not complete. In fact, payer enrollment is an ongoing process for each provider.

Payers require providers in their networks to re-enroll or verify their credentials every couple of years to ensure network providers are still eligible to deliver high-quality care. For example, the Affordable Care Act mandated Medicare provider revalidation every five years.

Healthcare organizations will find their claims put on hold and billing rights revoked if providers are not re-enrolled or validated by a specific deadline.

Organizations will also face claim delays and denials if they do not frequently update provider data and monitor certificate or documentation expirations.

Tracking when enrollment and certificates expire for each provider is time-consuming and error-prone. But an outsourced payer enrollment service specifically monitors enrollment and documentation expirations.

A payer enrollment service also regularly updates provider data on required platforms, such as CAQH’s Proview.

At its core, outsourcing payer enrollment services opens communication between healthcare organizations, payers, and providers. Outsourcing the process facilitates communication between the three stakeholders to ensure enrollment is approved and stays approved.

With a more open payer enrollment process, healthcare organizations should see more of their claims paid on time and without complication.

The timely enrollment of providers into health plans has become a crucial requirement of sustaining a thriving practice. symplr’s payor enrollment services can help you reduce the paperwork burden, streamline your provider onboarding process and enhance the profitability of your healthcare organization. We make payor enrollment simpler for healthcare organizations nationwide. For more information, email [email protected] or visit us at NationalCredentialing.com.

5 Steps for efficient physician credentialing

Physician credentialing is necessary to receive in-network reimbursement from insurance plans. Procrastination and haphazard processing can spell cash-flow disasters for your new provider. Fortunately, there are ways to minimize issues with credentialing. Here are five simplistic, yet proven, techniques to improve your credentialing success.

1. Start early. Be aware that most commercial insurance credentialing and contracting will take 90 – 120 days on average. Some plans are even slower, so don’t wait until the last minute. Many new practices or practices hiring a new provider make the mistake of beginning the process a month prior to a desired start date and then become frustrated when they cannot receive in-network reimbursement for another 3-4 months until the network contract process is complete. You must go through two processes with each insurance company; First, is the credentialing process where they verify all your education and training and then present your file to the credentialing committee for approval. The approval/rejection is based on their internal credentialing requirements. This first step typically takes around 90 days. Second, is the contracting process. The contracting process is where you are given the network contract for evaluation and execution. Only after your network contract is put into effect can you bill a commercial insurance company and receive in-network reimbursement. Commercial plan contracts do not have any retroactive billing provisions, so you will only be able to receive full reimbursement after your effective date.

2. Pay attention to the details. With such a lengthy process ahead of you, don’t delay your implementation by submitting credentialing applications with missing or incomplete information. Here are some of the most common errors found on payer enrollment applications:

  • Incomplete work history – you must include your current practice and all prior professional work history since graduating medical school and your history must include mm/yyyy format on all start/end dates;
  • Malpractice insurance – you must include your current policy and up to 10 years policy history;
  • Hospital privileges – you must have admitting privileges to an in-network hospital in order to participate with a health plan. If you do not, then you will need to have an admitting arrangement in writing with another in-network physician who will attest to an agreement to admit any of your patients that require in-patient services;
  • Covering colleagues – you are responsible for providing coverage for patients 24/7 and will need to disclose colleagues who cover for you when you are away. This is particularly important for solo practitioners;
  • Attestations – fully answer all yes/no questions on each application and provide complete details for response when necessary.

Getting your applications correct the first time will minimize the time delays for your new provider.

3. Stay current with CAQH. A current CAQH profile is an important part of commercial insurance credentialing. Make certain that your CAQH profile is current with all personal details, attestations, signature pages, and required documents. A majority of commercial payers utilize CAQH to retrieve the bulk of credentialing information. An incomplete profile will cause a delay in the process.

4. Require involvement from your new provider. When you hire a new provider, make sure he or she knows they are responsible for completing the credentialing process for all the payers with which your organization participates. Don’t think it is an inconvenience or offensive to a new provider to require them to complete necessary credentialing documents; it is their absolute responsibility. In order for the practice to be paid for their professional services, they must go through the credentialing and contracting process with each payer. Best practice would be to link a provider start date to completing primary payer credentialing. Build in punitive measures to employment contracts if a provider is uncooperative with credentialing.

5. Know your key payers. Know which payers represent 80% of your business so that you can prioritize credentialing to complete those payer processes first. You can selectively schedule patients for your new provider based on which plans have completed until the new provider is fully credentialed.

Credentialing is a tedious process. If you are not fully prepared with all necessary information to complete the process on first submission, you will cause delays in the process. It is a best practice to only begin the process with payers after you have compiled all information typically required during the payer credentialing process.

For information about outsourced credentialing services, contact National Credentialing Solutions (nCred) at (423) 443-4525, or visit their site for more information on provider enrollment services.

Credentialing New Physicians- It takes planning and perfect timing

It is always a good sign when your practice recruits a new physician fresh from medical school. It brings attention to your practice, and can help you build a reputation of being a forward-thinking practice that offers the newest and best patient care practices. Don’t let the credentialing process undermine those immediate benefits. Credentialing for a new physician requires advance planning and a fairly long lead time. As soon as you know the new physician will be joining your practice, you need to start the credentialing process. You want to make sure that as soon as s/he arrives at your door ready to begin seeing patients, they are also set up to bill properly.

BEWARE:

If you have to wait for your new physician to receive practice credentials, you cannot bill for his/her patient services in the meantime. Billing for your non-credentialed physician will result in denied claims to government health programs and either denials or out-of-network claims by commercial plans. Claims that are improperly paid during this time period can lead to audit problems, such as demand for reimbursement repayment, and a possible investigation into your billing practices. Most third party payers will not retroactively reimburse your practice for the new physician’s patient services, so that isn’t an option either. If a patient receives care from a non-credentialed physician, the patient may have to self- pay. As you can see, it’s important to get the new credentialing done right and on time, the first time!

Credentialing is a detailed and sometimes laborious process. That’s what we do. We take care of the credentialing process. Whether you have a new physician, a transferring physician or need re-credentialing, call us. We can save you time, money, and frustration! In our next blog we will give you tips and insights on how to credential a new physician the right way- the first time.