Your client and you will discuss how they want to handle the process after you have completed your work. For smaller clients, you may actually print the bills, mail them, collect the payments, and maybe even make the deposits. Although the most common means of payment processing is lock box, a smaller client may not feel the need nor want to burden the expense of this service. For these clients, you will probably create some kind of spreadsheet, either Excel or in real time, so that the client can post the payments that came in the mail. Other clients may prefer that you do only the billing for them, and they will take care of receiving the payments, and posting the payments. Of course, if you do have a client who wants you to manually process their payments, you want to adjust your fees accordingly since this will take more time for you and less time that you can devote to another client’s work.
For larger clients, the most common way is for the medical biller to send the bills, but the payments will be sent to a lock box for processing. What this means is that a special post office box number is set up through the post office, and the lock box processing agency, which is a designated bank, enters the payments into a special processing system, and at the end of the night, the information is transmitted by tape or other electronic means to the clients’ system where the payments are applied to the patients accounts. A reconciliation form and a copy of the checks are sent to the client so that they can correct any mispostings that occurred during lockbox posting and apply any payments that were rejected by the system.
Having many clients means there will be different needs and requirements, and as a medical biller, you have to be willing and able to accommodate those needs. As a freelance biller, you are in a better position to accommodate your clients’ needs than is a large billing agency that depends upon systems that are already in place and most likely do not have the personnel to handle any kind of manual billing or special needs. Of course, these agencies also tend to handle the large clients such as hospitals, laboratories, and walk in facilities rather than the individual health care provider such as respiratory therapists, physical therapists, speech therapists, and the like.