The Official VisionWeb Blog

Shane Shepherd shows how you can take free time to clear up your aging correctly. 

A good friend of mine, who was also once my employer and mentor, was always ready with a quip or little pearls of wisdom. These were often in the form of a quick thought, rather than a long dissertation, but still held the ability to change a body’s perspective once reflected upon.  

In this particular instance, we had just held a meeting about some of the larger initiatives we wanted to tackle. On a busy August day, as we each ran around the office like little army ants, we stopped to offer each other a few encouraging words. John McCormick looks at me says “Man, if it weren’t for these pesky patients, we could actually get something done.” Both of us instantly recognized the accuracy as well as the irony of his statement.

Navigating the world of insurance and billing can be complex at best and profit crippling at worst. When it comes to Medicare billing, there are specific requirements and processes your practice has to follow and understand.

We enlisted the help and advice of Shane Shepherd to unravel the complicated parts of getting your insurance reimbursements. With 17 years of experience, there's almost no claim he can't get paid.

Keep reading to find out the difference between secondary and supplemental Medicare insurance.

Shane Shepherd built our Revenue Cycle Management team at VisionWeb. He brought with him tons of billing, coding, and claims processing experience from years of working with eyecare practices. He's dropped some insurance related knowledge for us that we hope you'll find useful when dealing with patients paying with insurance cards. 

Today, he is talking about common questions he gets surrounding primary, secondary, replacement, and supplemental insurance claims, specifically in regards to Medicare.

The switch to ICD-10 is happening on October 1, 2015 - a deadline that will be here faster than you know it. This transition has caused a lot of practices to panic, but it doesn't have to! A little preparation goes a long way and we want to help get your practice on the right track. If you're a VisionWeb insurance customer we want you to know that we are already equipped to accept electronic claims that contain ICD-10 data. We just need your help to make sure that we're receiving the appropriate file formats from your system so that we can do a few mapping steps on our end. Once we take care of that we will be able to ensure that everything is passing through correctly.

The October 1^st implementation date for ICD-10 is approaching faster than you think, and it will undoubtedly bring with it some changes for your practice and your electronic claim filing processes. While many people fear change, we want to urge you to be open to the changes ICD-10 will bring to your practice. The new code set is designed to increase specificity in medical coding which will help with your practice’s efficiency. And, in all honesty, if you take the time to educate yourself on the changes you'll realize they aren't as intimidating as you may think.