Who is responsible for tracking charity and self-pay patients that come through your doors and later become eligible for Medicaid or Medicare? Most likely, there is not a designated team that tracks them because there are “more important” things to do and manage in a day. Eventually enough time finally passes, timely filing comes around and the CFO, on a time crunch, leaves money on the table by writing off those patients.
That’s how it works or how it’s always been done. But it doesn’t have to be.
Many times charity and self-pay patients become eligible for Medicaid days, weeks, months after their visit. And days, weeks, months after their visit, they can still be billed for through Medicaid. When there isn’t a designated team tracking this, that patient transfer to Medicaid can be missed and lead the facility to lost revenue for these visits.
