- Revenue Cycle Management
- COVID-19
- Reimbursement
- Diabetes Awareness Month
- Risk Management
- Patient Retention
- Staffing
- Medical Economics® 100th Anniversary
- Coding and documentation
- Business of Endocrinology
- Telehealth
- Physicians Financial News
- Cybersecurity
- Cardiovascular Clinical Consult
- Locum Tenens, brought to you by LocumLife®
- Weight Management
- Business of Women's Health
- Practice Efficiency
- Finance and Wealth
- EHRs
- Remote Patient Monitoring
- Sponsored Webinars
- Medical Technology
- Billing and collections
- Acute Pain Management
- Exclusive Content
- Value-based Care
- Business of Pediatrics
- Concierge Medicine 2.0 by Castle Connolly Private Health Partners
- Practice Growth
- Concierge Medicine
- Business of Cardiology
- Implementing the Topcon Ocular Telehealth Platform
- Malpractice
- Influenza
- Sexual Health
- Chronic Conditions
- Technology
- Legal and Policy
- Money
- Opinion
- Vaccines
- Practice Management
- Patient Relations
- Careers
Q&A: Figuring out who is the primary insurer
Medicare is usually the secondary payer, but not always. Check with the patient to see what other type of coverage is involved.
Q: There is much confusion in our billing office regarding when Medicare is primary or secondary. We constantly have rejections because of this issue. Is there an easy way to determine a patient's Medicare status?
A: The answer to knowing when Medicare is primary or secondary lies in talking to the patient to elicit information and knowing a few guidelines. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provides a great resource called "Welcome to Medicare Secondary Payer," which can be found at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/COBGeneralInformation/. Basically, there are some standard situations in which Medicare is almost always the secondary payer:
