7 Questions to Ask a Georgia Billing Service

The best questions to ask a Georgia billing service cover seven things: scope, payers, fees, privacy, reports, credentialing, and who works on your claims. Use this list with any company you are considering, MCM South included. It is written for solo and group practice owners, psychotherapists and psychiatrists, and the office staff who run the billing.

Why questions to ask a Georgia billing service matter

A billing service touches your claims, your patient information and your cash flow, so a vague answer on any of these seven topics is a reason to keep asking. Treat these questions to ask a Georgia billing service as a scorecard, not a script. Good answers are specific, written down and easy to repeat to your staff.

Georgia adds its own wrinkles, including Medicaid managed care and several Blue Cross and commercial plans. For a wider view of what a Georgia practice usually needs, see our mental health billing service for Georgia page and the Georgia billing guide.

Question 1: Do you bill only mental and behavioral health?

A company that bills every specialty may not know the difference between psychotherapy and evaluation and management (E/M) services. Ask what share of its work is mental and behavioral health, and how it keeps up with code and payer changes in that field. MCM South works only in mental and behavioral health. See the mental health CPT codes guide for how the code families differ.

Question 2: Do you serve both psychotherapists and psychiatrists?

Therapists and psychiatrists bill differently. Psychiatrists often bill E/M visits with add-on psychotherapy codes, while therapists bill psychotherapy codes by time. Ask how the company handles your license type, and ask for the contact who knows it. Our pages for private practice therapists and psychiatry billing show the difference.

Question 3: Which Georgia payers do you work with day to day?

Ask the company to name the payers it actually works with, and to separate three groups: private insurers, Georgia Medicaid, and Medicare. Each follows different rules. Georgia Families is the Medicaid managed care program in Georgia, and the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) contracts with private care management organizations (CMOs) to run it, as the DCH managed care page explains. Ask how the company checks which CMO covers a patient before it submits a claim.

Blue Cross plans are separate licensees with their own rules, so ask which one the company knows. Our Blue Cross Georgia guide and the Georgia Medicaid billing page are good starting points.

Question 4: How do you charge, and what is included?

Ask for the fee structure in writing, what it covers, and what costs extra. Look for clear answers on denial follow-up, secondary claims, corrected claims and appeals. Ask whether the company handles denial management or only submits claims, and how it treats secondary insurance and Employee Assistance Program (EAP) claims. Ask how you can end the agreement, too.

Question 5: Will you sign a business associate agreement?

A billing service sees protected health information, so HIPAA calls for a written business associate agreement (BAA). The HHS sample BAA provisions show what those contracts address. HHS says the sample is not required language, so have your attorney review the final agreement. A company that hesitates on a BAA is a company to skip.

Question 6: What reports will I see, and how often?

You should be able to see what was billed, paid, denied and still open. Ask for a sample report before you sign, and ask how a denial gets flagged to you. Reports are how you check the work, so they matter more than a sales promise. Ask whether the company works through a clearinghouse and who can see its status messages.

Question 7: Can you also help with payer enrollment and credentialing?

Credentialing is the payer process that adds you to a network. Ask whether the company helps with it, what you must supply, and how it keeps you informed. The process runs on each payer schedule, so be wary of any promised date. Our guides on in-network vs out-of-network credentialing and credentialing explain the steps. MCM South also bills out-of-network claims for clients.

What to do next with these questions to ask a Georgia billing service

Put the seven questions to ask a Georgia billing service in a shared document, send them to two or three companies, and compare the written answers side by side. Add your own questions on payers you rely on, and keep the answers with your practice records. Our South Georgia billing company guide and the billing terms glossary help you decode what you hear.

The short version: questions to ask a Georgia billing service

The questions to ask a Georgia billing service come down to this: does the company bill only mental and behavioral health, serve your license type, name its Georgia payers, explain its fees in writing, sign a BAA, show real reports and help with credentialing? Written answers beat verbal ones, and your attorney should review the contract.

How MCM South helps

MCM South is a medical billing service for psychotherapists and psychiatrists. It handles insurance verification, claim submission, denied claim follow-up, secondary claims, EAP claims and credentialing. Ask us the same questions to ask a Georgia billing service; you will get straight answers. Start with a free quote.

Where MCM South works

MCM South works with psychotherapists and psychiatrists in ten currently served states: Georgia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Texas, Florida, New York, Colorado, Tennessee, North Carolina and Illinois. See insurance company contacts by state, who we serve and the state billing guides. This post is operational guidance for billing, not legal advice.

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