Weigh risks and rewards of multiple fee schedules

Why This Topic Matters

Fee schedule design affects billing accuracy, reimbursement tracking, and compliance risk. Understanding the tradeoffs helps practices reduce administrative errors and avoid pricing structures that could create legal or operational problems.

Article Sections

1. Administrative Hassles

   This section reviews operational concerns associated with maintaining more than one fee schedule in a medical practice. It addresses workload, organization, payer comparison, and year-end update burden.

2. Medicare compliance issues

   This section discusses Medicare-related concerns that may arise when a practice charges different payers differently. It focuses on the general compliance questions raised by varying charge structures.

3. Setting rates for low-income patients

   This section looks at pricing approaches for patients with limited ability to pay. It addresses charitable discount concepts and the broader compliance considerations around reduced charges.