Q:

Dear Dr. Margolies,

My husband, was recently a student of yours.  We are starting a practice in Michigan and I 
have a question for you.  We have been approached by a person who does medical billing 
out of her home for a fee.  It has been my idea that I could do this from home myself while 
my husband concentrates on being the doctor.  Our capital is very low right now and we 
are concernced about paying for a service we don't need.  How hard is it to learn medical 
billing and is it one of those things that is worth it to pay someone else to do?  Also, where 
does one learn to do this?  We have a friend who has managed a chiropractic office for ten 
years who is willing to help us set it all up so we think she will be a good resource.
Thanks for your time.


A:

Thanks for the e-mail. As far as billing .. it is a no brainer. Your husband should have my 
Smart Start Book .. if he does look in on chapter II .. it has a number of ideas using 
insurance and an easy superbill program. We use 50% superbills (as in the book) in my 
office and the rest using the standard HCFA forms. Superbills is a one sheet check off 
system that many insurance companies still approve of .. be sure to yellow highlight the 
codes as seen in the book. But .. many insurance companies want HCFA forms .. these are 
standard red and black forms that all doctors use. It is easy for them to scan the info into 
their computer base. If you wish to use a superbill and not use a computer program at all .. 
look through mine and then make specific fee and address and ID# changes and fax it to me 
at 770-491-3799 and I can create a clean superbill as in my book for you. 

If you have limited resources and want to use a computer program .. I recommend you 
purchase a program called Easy Billing .. this is the program I use for billing only. It has 
some features that help with office maintenance .. but for this you need a better program .. 
of which I recommend ClinicPro. I will contact them both via e-mail and have them contact 
you. You can get demo programs from each and play around with it. Both give great 
customer support. I do not use a compouter to manage my practice .. just for word 
processing and HCFA forms .. therefore .. if you want to do things out of your home with 
a computer or once or twice a week in the office with a computer and wish to save money 
get the EasyBilling Lite program .. it's about $300+. This program allows you to place the 
patients names in your computer and send either a superbill or HCFA type form. 

The service this woman is offering is very popular. For a fixed fee .. say $3-4 or less a 
claim (usually six (line) notations on a HCFA form) they create a HCFA form and send it 
out and usually follow up for payment. The beauty of this service is it does free up a paid 
insurance staff member and when the claims are little it gets it done right. But .. if this 
person insists on aminimum fee whether you use the entire service or not and you can't 
reach that number of claim visits .. then do it yourself. The fee for Easybilling or ClinicPro 
(which also has a start up program for around $900) will be worth it if you intend on doing 
insurance. Both these companies have a minmum of free customer support then a small fee 
.. which you'll hardly have need of. 

As far as where you learn stuff like this .. well your DC friend can help you .. his CA can 
show you the ropes or just e-mail your questions to me.

I hope this helps

Have a Great Day

Dr. M

Here are some e-mail and phone numbers:
For HCFA Forms: 1-800-637-1140
easybilling@nets.com
guru@clinicpro