Jun 09
29

Billing Insurance Companies for Massage Therapists

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Billing insurance companies for massage therapy services can be a very lucrative way to build and grow your massage business.  There is a lot that you have to learn and do to bill correctly and make sure you get paid.  It also requires learning how to create a network of physicians and healthcare providers to  refer clients to you.   I have been billing insurance companies since I first started doing massage back in 1989.  I had 250 hours of training in massage school.  There are no technical classes required in order to bill an insurance company as many people may try to tell you especially if they are promoting classes on the topic.

I have written down most everything I know about billing insurance and created a section for it on my website.  Here is a basic outline of what you need to know:

  1. Ask the insurance company that you are working with how to bill correctly.  Find out what forms and paperwork they require, what codes that they will pay and what the payment schedule is.
  2. How to fill our a billing form which currently is the CMS 1500.  It is similar to the HCFA 1500 but includes space for your NPI number.
  3. You will need an NPI Number.
  4. You will need a HIPAA Privacy Policy Manual and forms.  Sohnen-Moe has some free forms to get you started.
  5. Know what codes to use for the CPT Code – there are only two main ones so you can’t go wrong really.  97124 and 97140.  It is usually a matter of what the insurance company accepts.  There are a few here that only accept 97124 which is therapeutic massage code and some that will accept 97140 which is considered to be manual therapy.
  6. Use a service like www.officeally.com to submit your bills electronically for free.
  7. Create a referral network of physicians.

While most of the information is on my site I have been getting out of insurance billing so I am not up to date on everything so I also highly recommend the Massage Insurance Billing Manual by Vivian Madison Mahoney.

I’ll talk about how to create a referral network in my next post.

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Related posts:

  1. Massage Insurance Billing Manual
  2. Insurance Billing Manual
  3. Can a massage therapist bill insurance companies?
  4. Screening Massage Insurance Clients
  5. Massage Insurance Reimbursement

This entry was posted on June 29, 2009 at 3:36 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Build Your Massage Business News by Julie Onofrio 1 Comment

1 Response to "Billing Insurance Companies for Massage Therapists"

  • Steven Mitchell says:
    November 5, 2009 at 3:29 pm
    Reply

    Hello,

    Office Ally is a web-based medical claims processing company that allows you to submit all your claims electronically – for FREE! We currently work with more than 2,000 commercial payers, as well as Medicare and Medicaid – please visit our website at http://www.officeally.com and click, “payer list” to view the complete listings
    You can move from time-consuming, costly print forms to sustainable, easy, on-line forms in less than a week. Once you sign-up with Office Ally and receive your username and password, our IT department will provide complete training and support for your entire staff. Here are just a few more reasons to enroll today.
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    • Electronic claims have a lower rejection rate and are processed quicker so payments are received sooner
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    • Over 2,000 payers available on-line, including Medicare & Medicaid
    • Electronic health records, online claim history and detailed summary reports
    • HIPAA compliant electronic transmission of CMS-1500 Claims & ERA/835s
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    To enroll in this free service, please contact me at (866) 575-4120 ext. 229 or email me at steven.mitchell@officeally.com I look forward to speaking with you soon.
    Sincerely,

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