Insurance administration fee

Re: Insurance administration fee

Bob Russell — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:47:25 GMT

We do charge here but the rate varies according to the time involved. It is a little arbitrary but the nurse doing the forms has a pretty good idea of which companies are going to come back for more information or be more difficult.

We do not send in 'iffy' claims so on principle I expect them to be paid unless there are specific limitations or exclusions on the policy. These are for the owners to deal with!

Re: Insurance administration fee

Robert Wilson — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 00:41:23 GMT

We charge £10 for doing an insurance claim. One member of staff spends ages on these, we have to print off histories, field queries from the insuance companies ...... I think it's more than justified. [quote user="eilidh cameron"]

Our surgery has recently started charging an administration fee of £9.00 for the completion of each insurance claim form. There is naturally much resentment from the clients, especially those making regular claims. Is this common practice these days?

[/quote]

Re: Insurance administration fee

Catherine Hemingway — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 22:57:10 GMT

We do charge approx £10 for a new claim and £5 if it's a continuation form. Most claims ie for a stitch up are relatively simple and take a couple of minutes however the continuation claims for the animal with arthritis & diabetes & atopy etc etc can take a while to complete and can get really confusing. Not my practice so not my decision, most clients are fine with it though.

Also I'm sure there was something in the vet record about 18mths ago about not being able to complete insurance forms for medications bought elsewhere ie online, as you are false certifying. We have a practice policy in these cases to complete the claim form for work we have done and then write an accompanying letter with the receipts from elsewhere. The letter states something like the following 'we wrote a written prescription for X and the owner chose to buy it from website Y. Here are the receipts the owner has provided however we cannot certify that they are genuine'. So far all insurance companies have been fine with this and settled the claim. Is anyone else doing this???????

Re: Insurance administration fee

Tanya Fielding — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 13:34:07 GMT

We dont charge but I get annoyed when clients demand the form to be completed by a set date or just sign the bottm and don't even fill in their side of the form. GP s who get paid a lot more than us by the public purse are happy to charge considerable ammounts.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Victoria Lee — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:20:18 GMT

[quote user="alex gough"]

We have two full time members of staff who spend 90% of their time dealing with insurance claims. We claim direct and dont charge, but we have discussed charging a number of times. Im against it for the same reasons mentioned above - we want to encourage people to have insurance.

Alex

[/quote]

My last practice did around 1000 claims per month and only charged admin fees for goods not purchased from ourselves, ie presc diet with saga/ prescription meds from internet pharmacies etc They had myself processing claims plus 2-3 others dealing with the fallout ie balance following claims, deductions, claim form requests etc etc. Yes it was a huge administrative burden but as quoted earlier 'don't bite the hand that feeds you'

Re: Insurance administration fee

Hannah Wynne Richards — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:06:34 GMT

You have to charge standard fees to insured clients-there would be noproblem with massive discounts to certain charities, with charity reg nos (I do that )-but you would be pushing your luck giving discounts to all,or even most non-insureds

Wynne

Re: Insurance administration fee

Martin Atkinson — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:56:14 GMT

[quote user="Hannah Wynne Richards"]

Charging more to insured clients would straightaway put you in the wrong legally-the insurence form contains a declaration that you have charged normal fees

Wynne

[/quote]

I do not charge the insured client any more than I would if they were not insured - that would be wrong. That does not preclude me from charging another individual less, surely that is at my discretion, otherwise the logical conclusion from that may be that I would have to charge all insured clients the charitable rate, which is for CP, C4 and RSPCA about 1/3 - 1/2 my standard fees.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Hannah Wynne Richards — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:46:53 GMT

Charging more to insured clients would straightaway put you in the wrong legally-the insurence form contains a declaration that you have charged normal fees

Wynne

Re: Insurance administration fee

Martin Atkinson — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:34:59 GMT

How many charge for a post-op check? In most cases this would cover the cost of a charge for completing a claim, is much more acceptable to the client because doctors always charge for every private consultation whether its pre or post op., and you could always waive the charge for a non-insured client would can't afford it.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Julian Earl — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 11:27:03 GMT

[quote user="alex gough"]

Alex [/quote]

Two full-time people? Just how big is your practice? We have five vets with an avergae number of insured clients and everybody manages to deal with their own claims. Not necessarily immediately, but we keep on top of it.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Alex Gough — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 10:45:23 GMT

Alex

Re: Insurance administration fee

Gareth Dowdeswell — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:07:48 GMT

[quote user="Vikki Halliday"]

We only charge where we are claiming direct for the fees, and we charge £11.

[/quote]

That was the situation in my last job, tho the fee was only about £6. Those who complained were given the option of paying everything and then claiming it back themselves.

In my current job there's no fees, but we do a lot less direct claims. I think charging a fee is justifiable - one member of staff spends a considerable amount of their time filling out insurance forms.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Hannah Wynne Richards — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:05:13 GMT

I definitely wouldn't charge for filling in forms-I'm trying to persude everyone to have insurence-not put them off

As far as putting non prescription items on the form, I would stick STRICTLY to RCVS guidelines, and state that I can only certify what I know from my own knowledge

I have never had an insured owner request a scrip. There is one dog which I referred to a specialist, who put him on sotalol-it's not in the NVS catalogue,so the easiest way for everyone is to give the owner a scrip-I give the scrip, the owner brings the receipt back, so I'm happy to certify

Wynne

Re: Insurance administration fee

Mark Hedberg — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:48:01 GMT

Never done that here; we charge £10 for administration fees for bad debts, which is a bit ironic as it sometimes seems it's just £10 more that we won't see some days. :p

Re: Insurance administration fee

Laurence Webb — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:33:04 GMT

[quote user="Julian Earl"]

[quote user="robloxley"]

The clients that get their meds on the internet but still want us to fill in the insurance form - especially for non-POMs (e.g. glucosamine) for which no prescription has been purchased - are an annoyance when doing it for free.

[/quote]

Why claim for those then? How can you certify on the claim form that they have had them? It's not necessarily their receipt for example.

[/quote]That's not a situation that has come up for us so far, but an interesting conundrum. Clients could view a refusal to help with a claim for medication bought elsewhere as being obstructive, but you are effectively certifying that a client has paid for someting when you can't be sure that they have.

Do insurance companies accept clients submitting forms and self certifying that they have bought medications on your recommendation?

I recall one insurance company actually was suggesting to clients that they shop around for medications rather than purchase them from vets. Obviously that will save them money, even more so if they won't pay out for the cost of the medication if a vet can't certify that they have been purchased and how much was paid.

If you did claim for medications bought elsewhere I'd certain feel more comfortable with charging a fee, but how does that sit with the Competition Comission's ruling that charges must be the same whether medications are bought at a practice or a written prescription issued? Is an administration fee exempt as it isn't a charge for clinical advice or a written prescription?

Re: Insurance administration fee

nikki — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:39:29 GMT

we dont charge but it's quite common for equine practices to charge it seems. my current one for my horses doesn't, but several previous ones have charged up to £15 for filling in the form.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Julian Earl — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:28:36 GMT

[quote user="robloxley"]

[/quote]

Why claim for those then? How can you certify on the claim form that they have had them? It's not necessarily their receipt for example.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Vikki Halliday LLB — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:19:27 GMT

We only charge where we are claiming direct for the fees, and we charge £11.

This is mainly due to the amount of time we are outstanding the money, and we have yet to have a client complain about this.

We don't charge for insurance forms where the client has paid us, however looking at private medical fees, there are GP's who charge £75-90 for such a service!

No wonder they are on six figure salaries........

Re: Insurance administration fee

Michael Woodhouse — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:59:23 GMT

We don't charge, but wouldn't allow them to claim for anything not purchased through the practice [like the glucosamine] or drugs bought on prescription.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Rob Loxley — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:37:23 GMT

Also if you're charging then I'm sure there will also be complaints that the form wasn't completed/sent off in x days.
I think most practices absorb the costs (time, postage/eclaim costs) and accept that the insured clients are by definition less cost-restrained so have often not cut costs and spending with the practice elsewhere. The clients that get their meds on the internet but still want us to fill in the insurance form - especially for non-POMs (e.g. glucosamine) for which no prescription has been purchased - are an annoyance when doing it for free.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Julian Earl — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:29:11 GMT

No - seems like a very efficient way to upset people to me. After all, since computer print-outs were invented, it ids not that time-consuming to fill in a claim form.

Re: Insurance administration fee

Gillian Mostyn — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:26:17 GMT

We don't - and it seems to me like biting the hand that feeds you....