Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Won A Round

I am sure many of you have also been sent faxes or letters from a variety of Managed Medicare companies stating that for them to keep their contract with Medicare they have to document accurate diagnosis and coding practices performed by you the physician. They then request that your office mail to them records on numerous patients so they can review them and then report their findings.

Well, I have been going around and around recently with one of these companies (begins with H). Their first letter did not include a return fax number so I simply deleted it. After they called me on the phone I told them I would respond to their fax only when they provided me with a return fax number. Their next request for records letter had a return fax number on it so I faxed theirs back with the following comment, "You are welcome to come to my office and review any of the above charts but I will not use my staff nor my resources to gather and transmit this information to you."

A few weeks passed and then I got a phone call asking if I got their fax and I replied, "yes", did they get my fax, and they said "yes" and I said "why are you wasting my time asking me if I got your fax when you know very well I did because I returned it to you?" The person on the other line stammered and then recovered and then asked if I was going to send them the info. I told them to go read the fax and hung up.

Today, someone else calls and tells me they cannot send someone to my office but, if they pay me for the gathering and copying of this information would I then do it. I told them of course, as long as they reimburse me for the amount of staff time at the hourly rate that I pay the person who would do this. They agreed and told me to send them the bill, they would pay and then we will send the records.


Leslie, grinning from ear to ear.