Unless you have in the medical billing industry, or for a software manufacturer specializing in medical billing, you can not possibly imagine what a great business is when it comes to forms. There are several forms for medical billing than Carter has liver pills, and they are not away for free. The money is made from processing medical forms or even just in the creation of blank forms is crazy.

Back in the old days of medical forms, there were not too many. Their first and only for a long time, the HCFA form the 1500th This is a standard medical form with a boat load of information about individual patients, including patients' personal information such as name, address, date of birth, social security number and so on. This is also the patient medical problems, diagnosis and treatment, including the fees for all these things. The form was then printed, and the payment by the insurance carrier for either the patient or directly to the provider. That would be good if they'd left well enough, but no.

Today, in addition to your standard HCFA 1500, we have UB-92, CMS-1450, HCFA 1450 and a ton of other forms. We have several forms for medical billing, as the diseases we are likely to account. As a result, it has become a huge market for the creation of these forms. There are companies that actually specialize in one type of form. For example, if the UB-92-format for the first time, it was only business, the UB-92 forms, because it's such a big demand.

Well, if we have all this CMN forms, certificates of medical necessity, then we have a whole new can of worms. CMNs are for certain items such as wheelchairs. The reason they are necessary, and that is the spirit of stunning part to all this madness is that for certain items such as a wheelchair, you must show that there is an actual medical necessity for the wheelchair. The person can no legs to walk and, of course, need only the information on the HCFA, however, suggest that CMN and that wheelchairs are not provided. Total madness. CMN So are the big companies, because we have so many people and so many points, in addition to wheelchairs, such as osteo-therapy devices that the number of submitted CMNs almost equal to the number of medical forms themselves. Some patients actually need more forms CMN for a claim.

All this in a multi-million dollar a year industry. As a result, there are many players on the market. Simply go to the Internet and search HCFA and see a list of companies, one miles long, that these forms. The good news is that because there's so much competition, prices for the forms have evolved from the early years.

I think we should be God for the little things in life.

Michael Russell

Your independent guide to Medical Billing