Many insurance carriers have seen the writing on the wall related to complementary and alternative medicine, and have answered the demands of their beneficiaries — of which approximately 40% are seeking such therapies. That means that several insurers are now paying for acupuncture, chiropractic services, biofeedback, and naturopathy.
Consider also that the Health Information Technology and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), which was signed into law on February 17, 2009 by President Obama, requires that Medicare and Medicaid providers adopt “health information technology” by the year 2019, and offers grants and other financial incentives for doing so. Where the federal government goes, the private insurers are usually either way ahead of the game, or at least not too far behind. That means that those insurance companies that are not already accepting and encouraging electronic claims submissions will be soon, and since many alternative and complementary therapies are already covered, these will be part and parcel of this trend toward electronic billing.
This is a good thing, really, as the use of electronic medical billing programs have several advantages for the single or group practitioner, not the least of which are the severely reduced claims processing times, with one provider reporting that payment of paper claims that had previously taken between fifty and sixty days is now taking only five to ten days with electronic claims submission. When combined with an electronic medical record, medical billing software can also greatly reduce the number of medical errors that are now being reported, which is a definite cost-saver for healthcare benefits carriers.
