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What is ERISA Claim Consulting?

$2,000.00--3,000.00/day & 2 Days  Minimum

 

Problem Focused Solutions With ERISA Claims

 

We/You Identify Your Specific, Worst, Urgent Problem(s)

in Your Practice/ Facility

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Stop & Prevent Claims Denials & Delays

 

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Denials + Recoupment = Inflation + Fraud or Cost-Sharing?

Rx = Compliant Denial & Appeals!

Health Care Analysts See Bleak Outlook for Hospitals with Reimbursement Changes (The New York Times; one-time registration required)

Excerpt: "Chill is in the air for hospitals accustomed to having insurers - both public programs like Medicare and private health plans - pay ever higher prices for hospital services. That era appears to be ending, some analysts say."

Forbes.com: "Roughly one in seven Americans has no health insurance. That hurts HCA Inc. (nyse: HCA - news - people),

"... the largest U.S. hospital chain, which last year wrote off $2.21 billion of revenue because patients couldn't pay their bills."

The American Hospital Association (AHA): "Hospitals today are faced with the challenge of managing their limited resources, while continuing to deliver the highest standard of care. According to health care experts, the cost of clinical denials to individual healthcare organizations averages $3.3 million annually. However, many hospitals do not have the resources or the expertise needed to avoid unpaid days at the end of admissions and lead the denial-appeals processes."

Payments Go Under a Microscope (washingtonpost.com)

"MAMSI and CareFirst recoup overpayments to doctors by making deductions from future reimbursements. Doctors can appeal insurers' decisions. But, in the end, they usually pay up, doctors and insurers agree."

Hospital Pricing and the Uninsured, Glenn Melnick, Ph.D., "Price Gouging"
(Subcommittee on Health
Hearing on the Uninsured, Tuesday, March 09, 2004)

 

U.S. FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST NATIONAL ACCOUNTING FIRM UNDER FALSE CLAIMS ACT (DOJ Press Release

"January 5, 2004 - PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney Patrick L. Meehan announced today the filing of the Government's complaint against national accounting firm Ernst & Young. According to the complaint, nine hospitals paid Ernst & Young for billing advice – advice which later caused the submission of false claims to the Medicare program."

Employers Audit Workers' Health Claims (Wall Street Journal via SFGate.com) & (MLive.com, MI)

Excerpt: "Looking to bring down soaring health-care costs anywhere they can, more employers are scouring their health plans for fraud, abuse and simple mistakes by employees or administrators.

.......The number of requests for such audits jumped 50 percent last year, Mr. Farley estimates."

USATODAY.com - Hospitals Sock Uninsured with Much Bigger Bills

GM to Report $60B in Future Health-Care Obligations

 

 

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"Class Actions" v. "New Strike Force"

 

HMOs Earn $10.2 Billion in 2003, Nearly Doubling Profits, According to Weiss Ratings; Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans Report 63% Jump in Earnings (BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 30, 2004

 

950,000 MD's Settled With Aetna & Cigna on ERISA

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Maximal Reimbursement or Crisis Turnaround to Get Paid! 

 

ERISAclaim.com concentrates entirely on an unique and unprecedented approach to denial and appeals for health-care ERISA claims. Although ERISA has been in existence for 28 years and regulates about 80% of health-care claims in U.S., it was never understood by health-care providers, physicians and hospitals. 

 

We provided consulting service to individual health-care providers, clinics and hospitals on specific needs of health-care ERISA claim denials and appeals by educating, analyzing and fundamentally reengineering your claim appeal process for more effective reimbursement consistent with current federal statutes and regulations when traditional and conventional insurance appeal strategy and practice failed.

 

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Aetna:  Leading the Fight Against Health Care Fraud [PDF] View as HTML

"Thanks to this highly collaborative relationship, we know how to identify fraud because we know what to look for.

 

Medical Fraud

  1. Unusual provider billing practices.

  2. Discrepancy between the submitted diagnosis and the treatment.

  3. Diagnoses or treatments that are outside the practitioner’s scope of practice.

  4. Claims that are resubmitted with coding changes to gain benefits.

  5. Alterations on claim submissions.

  6. Pressure for quick claim payment."

Payments Go Under a Microscope (washingtonpost.com) January 12, 2004

"MAMSI and CareFirst recoup overpayments to doctors by making deductions from future reimbursements. Doctors can appeal insurers' decisions. But, in the end, they usually pay up, doctors and insurers agree."

Employers Audit Workers' Health Claims (Wall Street Journal via SFGate.com)

Excerpt: "Looking to bring down soaring health-care costs anywhere they can, more employers are scouring their health plans for fraud, abuse and simple mistakes by employees or administrators.

.......The number of requests for such audits jumped 50 percent last year, Mr. Farley estimates."

Clinton Township Firm Convicted of Overbilling (Macomb Daily)

"The case is somewhat unusual in that a corporation was named as a criminal defendant in the case, but Kaiser said that is not unheard of since corporate law can make a firm liable for criminal wrongdoing, and its principal office holders in return are responsible for any judgments or punishments the courts impose.

David Griem, the defense attorney for Emergency Management who was also named the principal to enter a guilty plea on its behalf, also could not be reached for comment after the sentencing hearing. In court, however, he turned over a check to the Blue Cross insurance company officials in attendance and said the company would pay the $5,000 court costs on time as well."

U.S. Department of Justice Seal

Health Care Fraud Report

Fiscal Year 1998

Link to Site Map

USDOJ: Deputy Attorney General: Publications and Documents - - Health Care Fraud Report Fiscal Year 1998

 

"On June 4, 1998, in the District of Maryland, Levindale Geriatric Hospital paid $800,000 to resolve allegations it violated the FCA by recoding and resubmitting denied charges for room and board. After the claims for room and board were denied by the Medicare Part A program, Levindale recoded the claims as supplies, laboratory work and other services, and submitted the claims for payment. In addition to paying a substantial penalty under the FCA, Levindale entered into a compliance agreement with HHS-OIG"

 

ERISA Power Guides
(
Copyright © 2004 by Jin Zhou, ERISAclaim.com, )

What You Should Know about Filing
Your Health Benefits Claim (Claims Card)

Filing A Claim For Your Health Or Disability Benefits (PDF)

Patient's Rights Claims Procedure Regulation (Fact Sheet)
Benefit Claims Procedure Regulation (FAQ)
New Federal Claim Regulation (Final Rule)
Amendments to Summary Plan Description Regulations (Final Rule)
   

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Health Benefits Advisor

DOL/EBSA Organization Chart/Regional and District EBSA Offices | By Topic | By Audience | By Organization | By Location  

 

 

The Root of U. S. Healthcare Crisis

Jin Zhou, ERISAclaim.com

The Hearing at Senate Committee on Finance on 3-3-04, [View Video "Health Insurance Challenges: Buyer Beware" 3-3-04
Hearing, Senate Committee on Finance
or Transcript (PDF) (KaiserNetwork.org)]  revealed the mechanism, nature and extent of ERISA failure and nonenforcement as the reasons for "Growth in Bogus Health Insurance Plans Targeting Desperate Small Business Owners", as being concluded as "No the results are not good. It’s a tragedy." by Ann Combs, assistant secretary of DOL. The mechanism, nature and extent of ERISA failure and nonenforcement as presented at the Hearing are universally true and applicable to all health care claim denials and delays in managed care environment from all employer sponsored health plans as the root of U. S. healthcare crisis.

 

This is a 911 call on "healthcare 9/11 disaster"!

THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT (pdf)

 

U.S. House of Representative Seal

February 5, 2003, H. R. 957 (pdf)
February 5, 2003, H. R. 956 (pdf)

 

Norwood Introduces The Patient Protection & ERISA Clarification Acts

 

More than 70% of healthcare claims denied or delayed each year were not because of coding or billing errors or disputes, but due to non-coding and non-billing related reasons, such as policy exclusion, medical necessity/utilization reviews, pre-existing exclusions, pre-certification, prior-authorization, PPO bundling and downcoding and "unknown" or unexplained reasons. Yet all denials and delays were handled by coding and billing staffs, while up to 80% of healthcare claims are ERISA claims and these coding and billing staffs have no training and knowledge in ERISA, coverage dispute, appeal procedures. No one seems to know what to do, but do whatever they felt need to be done - going circles and frustrations every day.

 

Coding and billing are less than half of the successful reimbursement practice, coding and billing are not appealing and coverage dispute practice. Many coders and billers are wonderful, non-confrontational and very sophisticated individuals, but they might be terrible and counterproductive debaters, and less than ideal legal reasoning and logical thinkers. Many financial executives are hands-free managers in reimbursement divisions.

 

The latest Harvard & RAND study for Congress and state legislative debate on Patients' Bills of Rights, conducted by David Studdert and Carole Roan Gresenz, study authors from the Harvard School of Public Health and RAND, funded by federal government, Department Of Labor, and Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, revealed that "little is publicly known about such appeals system", and concluded that "A majority of preservice appeals disputed choice of provider or contractual coverage issues, rather than medical necessity. Medical necessity disputes proliferate not around life-saving treatments but in areas of societal uncertainty about the legitimate boundaries of insurance coverage. Greater transparency about the coverage status of specific services, through more precise contractual language and consumer education about benefits limitations, may help to avoid a large proportion of disputes in managed care."

 

 

A JAMA Editorial commenting this study further supported the conclusion of this study and advanced the right solutions more precisely at New ERISA Claim Regulations: "Regulations issued by the Clinton administration in 2000 were designed to infuse rigor into the appeals process maintained by employer-sponsored health plans covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA),10 which governs insurance arrangements for more than 150 million workers and their family members. Whether these rules will be vigorously enforced remains to be seen."

 

 

The updated Harvard & RAND study, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), published on June 18, 2003 through Health Affairs, examined the outcomes of nearly a half-million coverage requests in two large medical groups that contract with health plans to deliver care and conduct utilization review, and discovered the urgency and necessity of expertise of ERISA claim procedure specialists. The study concludes the following in its summary and policy implications: "....We found much higher denial rates than those previously reported.....Denials made on contractual grounds—the largest share of denials—may call for both clinical and contractual expertise. Hence, they should ideally be made by personnel who are versant in both areas. There was some evidence of this sort of dual expertise being brought to bear on coverage decisions at the two groups we studied."

 

The latest and updated RAND/Harvard Study, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and requested by Congress, examines the outcomes of nearly a half-million coverage requests in two large medical groups and revealed the following:

 

 

"......In this environment, contractual coverage and medical-necessity issues that persist are likely to be for services that enrollees feel especially strongly about. Such consumer concerns, together with ongoing consumer protection agendas that include reforms such as guaranteed external review and right-to-sue provisions, mean that the policy importance of UR denials in managed care is unlikely to wane in the foreseeable future."

 

However these best experts "hired" by Congress and federal government are one step away from the complete discovery and solution. Let us fill in the missing links and connect dots in order to save our health-care system from collapsing and crisis.


First, we identify the controlling force and power in contractual policy coverage denial. The majority of Americans are covered under the employer-sponsored health-care programs in private sectors under ERISA, 80% of the claims and 60% of health expenditures are regulated under ERISA. Each individual ERISA plan offers different coverage and benefits, either self-insured or fully-insured through purchase of insurance from an insurance company. The controlling and governing document for each ERISA plan is Summary Plan Description (SPD), the rule of the game for interpreting each SPD and resolving the disputes on contractual denials is ERISA claims procedure regulations. Therefore the experts from Harvard & Rand study group discovered the importance and necessity of "contractual expertise" but aborted the solution of "contractual expertise" due to "the reasons of size or financial stress, this may be beyond the reach of smaller medical groups that have assumed responsibility for UR".