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MRHC Newsletter
January - March 2003 Issue
Fee Analysis Service:
Since the New Year is here many clinics use this opportunity to tweak their services prices. We have a great deal of experience working with the
Resource Based Relative Value System (RBRVS) and are offering a service providing analysis and recommendations that may improve the efficiency of your pricing structure. As you may know, Medicare and most of the
commercial health plans use a reimbursement schedule based on the RBRVS system, though some use different years and some decrease or increase reimbursement using geographic or other modifiers. While we will not
recommend specific fee rates we will illustrate how your fees compare with Medicare and MRHC health plan reimbursement rates on a CPT basis. Remember that all payers pay “the lesser of” meaning that if the fee you
charge is below what they have agreed to pay they will oblige you and pay you your lower requested rate. Given today’s continued downward pressure on reimbursement you simply can’t afford to leave money on the
table. The fee for this service is a flat $500.
Physician and Non-Physician Medical Staff Recruitment:
Many MRHC member clinics and hospitals are also members of the Advantage/Amerinet buying group. One of the benefits of belonging to Amerinet is significant
discounts (approx. 25%) on physician and non-physician medical staff recruiting services with Goddard Healthcare Consulting and RNStat, a division of Goddard. Usually the funds placed in the physician or
non-physician recruitment projects of an entity are kept separate but MRHC has negotiated an arrangement with Goddard and RNStat that allows unused funds from one area to be accessed in the other area, as an
entity’s needs change.
Billing Services:
We have recently contracted with AdminConnection to be a preferred vendor with MRHC. Their business is to provide accounts receivable or billing
services to physician and hospital clients. AdminConnection is based in Willmar and currently works with some of our members including the Montevideo Clinic, West Central Radiological Associates, and Minnesota
Pathology Chartered. Outsourcing your accounts receivable creates many advantages including very fast turnaround from dictation to receiving payments, increased billing expertise by having staff focus on a certain
payer, providing staff depth so no delays are caused by staff being absent, and reduced staff space, wage and benefits issues.
If interested, check their web site at www.adminconnection.net; call Curt Bach toll free at 800-992-2455 or 320-231-2206 or e-mail info@adminconnection.net.
Director’s Corner:
Additions: We are actively pursuing new membership in the cooperative. The benefits we believe this will bring our members are mainly in two
important areas. First, while some expenses would increase with added membership most of the additional dues would be used to reduce each member’s dues. Second, added membership size will improve our negotiating
strength with all of our business partners which may favorably impact our member’s bottom-line. Other important benefits include more in-network referral providers and more colleagues to share knowledge and ideas
with.
Reductions: If members are considering discontinuing their membership for whatever reason they need to remember that they need to give a
140-day written notice to our office. We in turn are contractually obligated to give all of our health plan 130-day written notice. The health plans in turn are legally mandated to give the Minnesota Department of
Health 120-day written notice. Failure to give the required notice could jeopardize MRHC contracts for all members and result in state fines that would be passed through to the terminating member.
Group Health Insurance:
Buying through MRHC as one large group of many businesses. We are working with Armbruster Executive Benefits of Shoreview MN to
combine many smaller members into one large group using the co-op umbrella to purchase either a fully insured plan (traditional method) or a self-insured plan. Both would work for us given the great initial interest
from our members. Initial premium savings and/or reduced rate of annual increases are the goal.
Buying through MRHC as an individual business:
Another option includes our working with Hanratty and Associates (www.hanrattyassoc.com) of Minneapolis, MN. H&A offers both group health insurance and a “select 105 plan” where employers can purchase high deductible health insurance while reinsuring the spread from a lower deductible minimizing the impact to the employee while saving a considerable amount of premium cost. All members with more than 20 employees would benefit greatly with this plan. We are also pursuing the combined group plan with the select 105 plan.
Quality Corner:
The next meeting of the Quality Council will be Wednesday, January 15, at 2:00 p.m. at the Chippewa County Montevideo Hospital. We will be
deciding on our QI projects for 2003 and selecting a team for each project.
If you are not able to attend the meeting, but would like input on the projects we pick or would be willing to serve as a team member, please contact Mendy Lange at the MRHC prior to the meeting. We will also go over a draft of the 2003 clinic survey and provide an opportunity for members to have input on the survey tool. The 2003 clinic survey topic will be Care Delivery. Hope to see you on January 15th!
MRHC health plan contract information:
Specific information about contracts can’t be placed on the website. Please contact Chuck for any specifics.
A frequently asked question (FAQ) pertains to patients presenting with ProNet/Aetna, United Health Care, and LaborCare health plan cards. All of
these payers are included in Medica LaborCare (formerly Medica SelectCare PPO) that MRHC does have a contract with. New cards should say LaborCare but some may still include the old names. Please note that ACMC also
accepts LaborCare, though no other Medica product.
MRHC web space and e-mail accounts:
If your business has a website and provides e-mail accounts for some employees please consider moving your business to MRHC. Our service includes
20 MB of space and 40 free e-mail accounts for $15 per month. We will move your existing site and set you up for free. You will keep your existing URL. This is significant savings over other vendors.
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