If you have insurance for your behavioral/mental health sessions, this is how it may be for our office to bill them for you; (based on true stories).

Your primary health insurance company may contracted with a second company for mental health.

The second company then would be the one this office would bill for you. We would need the name of company, claims address, member name, date of birth, member number, employer etc.

This second company may want to be billed through a third company, (such as with Blue Shield billing through Blue Shield –MHNA at a different billing address.

So now this office has no idea that the claims sent to the second company should be sent to a third. When this office explores further with the second company we see no claims are paid “no pay EOB’ and are told these type of claims are to be sent to a third place. Who would a known?

After billing the third company, this office may receive a check from a fourth insurance company. Perhaps, and usually, this office has no connection to the fourth company. The check and/or stub has NO information as to client, so this office is at a loss as to who to credit. There is no client name, no session date, and no customer service number.

At this point this office may have spent a 2-3 hours on your billing for you, depending on hold times, website efficiency, ability to find a customer service number, etc.

This long story was to explain why this office no longer bills insurance for new clients. We will continue to bill as established for current clients. If you are with Optum or Anthem we will make an exception and bill for you (even new clients) because they have both been user friendly so far.

Sorry for the inconvenience, we hope you understand.

It works like this;