Ask the Expert: Matching Billing to Service Under One Tax ID

Question: For a number of legal reasons, we have all our operations under one tax id number. However, we have a variety of business units which bill off different billing systems for unique service lines. One for the hospital, one for our ambulances and three systems for different physician practices. Since they all bill under one tax id, payers send money to the wrong units. We have several additional FTE who do nothing but track down money, make copies and send checks between units to clear up the problems. How can I get only the funds for each billing area correctly remitted just to that unit?  

Answer: This is a common issue many providers face, and unfortunately, unless the Payer is willing to cut checks based on NPI instead of tax id number – there is no easy answer to this question. Some have had better luck with Payers if they accept electronic remittance and fund transfers as the Payer community seems better equipped to separate the entities by NPI when they are not a paper check. That would be one strategy to attempt that may work better than the paper chase.

This question was answered by Todd Nelson, HFMA Technical Director