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When a physician is offered an employment contract, particularly with a private practice, some of the medical service billing responsibilities sometimes rest on the physician. As if it's not enough to worry about caring for your patients and taking care of other administrative duties, physicians are often faced with various billing tasks that require enormous attention to detail and experience in an area that has become its own industry. It is, of course, part of the job- knowing what CPT codes fit which service, and which modifiers go where; but one can't help but wonder if there might be someone better suited than a physician to handle the nitty-gritty billing concerns. After all, there is an entire industry of professionals whose exact job it is to ensure that medical services are billed properly. So beware of vague or overly-broad billing responsibilities in your physician employment agreement.
Of even more significant concern in some instances is where the physician employment contract expressly assigns the billing responsibilities to someone on the billing staff, but also holds the physician responsible for any payment recoupments or audit recoveries that occur due to incorrect billing. While it very well may be the fault of the physician in some instances of billing errors, the last thing you want is to be held accountable for someone else's mistake. For instance, in some physician employment contracts, the billing staff is responsible for coding the services and sending out the bills, but then the physician is held responsible if something is billed incorrectly and a payor recovers their payment. In this type of arrangement, it is helpful for the physician to have some amount of oversight or appeal rights when it comes to the practice's internal billing practices and policies.
For more information on how the details of your physician employment agreement may significantly impact your practice of medicine and your income, please contact Leigh Ann O'Neill at lone ill@lauthoneill.com or 317-989-4833.
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