Getting insurance companies to fairly reimburse for services rendered is one of the biggest struggles for many addiction treatment providers today. Between an initial verification of benefits, pre-authorizations, concurrent reviews, and even retrospective reviews, it’s easy to get lost in the insurance authorization labyrinth and spend a lot of your organization's time (and money!) fighting with insurance companies.
How to Make a Perfect Addiction Treatment Biopsychosocial Assessment Every Time
Biopsychosocials (or “BPS” for short) are often one of the first pieces of documentation addiction treatment counselors complete with their patients. Although busy clinicians might dread writing these lengthy and time consuming tomes on each client, the BPS is more than just a mandatory insurance form.
4 Ways to Improve Your Behavioral Health Center's SOAP Notes Today
SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan) notes have been the cornerstone of medical documentation since Lawrence Reed introduced the “Problem Oriented Medical Record” in the 1950’s. Before the dawn of SOAP notes, medical practitioners of Reed’s time had no standardized method of record-keeping. Instead, each provider would scribble notes in their own fashion, making insurance reimbursement, coordinated care, and chart review difficult and time-consuming.
5 Tips for Easy Implementation of Your New Behavioral Health EHR
How Smart Patient Portals Improve Addiction Treatment Engagement and Outcomes
Patient portals—online dashboards where patients can access their EHR, view test results, review treatment plans, track referrals, and message their providers—have been around for years.
The adoption of patient portals in the addiction treatment industry was slow, but as more and more providers realize the benefits of these powerful patient engagement tools, patient portal adoption rates at addiction treatment centers and sober living homes are soaring.
Low Insurance Reimbursement Rates? 4 Reasons Your Addiction Treatment Center Isn't Getting Paid
BehaveHealth Bridge: Introducing our Latest Smart Software for Treatment Center Admissions
We hear it from our clients all the time: treating patients for SUD is easy, but getting patients into treatment is hard.
For many of the providers we work with, filling beds and keeping them filled seems to be taking more and more staff time, slowly cutting into their businesses’ bottom line. That’s why we created BehaveHealth Bridge—a platform to help you connect with new clients.
4 Ways Smart Software Protects Your Behavioral Health Organization from HIPAA Violations
The US government recently reported that millions of health records are breached every year. For behavioral health organizations, each breach translates into massive fines for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) laws.
HIPAA fines, which range from $100 to $50,000 per record, can easily bankrupt an organization.
4 Tips for Developing Outcome Tracking for Your Addiction and Mental Health Treatment Organization
You already know your treatment center is providing excellent care, but do you have the numbers to back it up?
Anecdotal evidence is no longer enough to convince prospective clients and their families to trust your center with a life-and-death behavioral health crisis.
It’s Never Been Easier to Open a Treatment Center. Here’s Why.
Thinking of opening a drug rehab center or sober living house?
Good news—your timing couldn’t be better. Now is a great time to get into this industry and start making a difference in your community!
Your Top 3 Questions About HIPAA Violations and Cloud-Based Behavioral Health Management Systems
3 Secrets of Efficient Insurance Billing for Drug Rehabs
People in the behavioral health industry are usually passionate about helping others—but they’re not usually passionate about completing paperwork.
Very rarely do we hear our clients utter the words “I love medical billing!”
But the truth is, insurance billing is the lifeline of any behavioral health organization. Do it well, and your business has a chance to succeed. Do it poorly, and you definitely set yourself up for failure.
Quick Start Guide to Choosing a New Addiction Treatment CRM
Insurance Is Supposed to Cover Addiction Treatment, But It's Still a Nightmare (Vice)
During an overdose epidemic so large that it is cutting overall life expectancy in the US, you’d think that insurance companies and the healthcare system would be bending over backwards to get people into evidence-based treatment—especially since we have two drugs that are proven to cut the death rate by at least half. In reality, they are doing the opposite. And the barriers they place in the way of treatment are killing people.
3 Ways Your Behavioral Health EHR is Slowly Driving Your Team Crazy
What is the Intensive Outpatient (IOP) level of care?
IOP stands for Intensive Outpatient. This type of care is used most in the behavioral health industry for the treatment of substance abuse issues. It is also utilized for patients with mental health disorders.
Most state licensing departments classify IOP as an outpatient service, requiring an outpatient license. IOP can be 3, 4, or 5 days per week and normally consists of at least 3 hours per day of programming.
IOP is often used as a step down from a Partial Hospitalization program. Depending on the program, they can be encouraged to look for employment in this level of care, but that is not a requirement. In early recovery, it is important to maintain structure for the client, which can be achieved with IOP.
Get your free trial started today and see why more addiction treatment centers prefer Behave Health.
The SUPPORT Act and Healthcare Providers—A First Look
The newly enacted SUPPORT Act’s wide-ranging provisions take aim at the entire healthcare continuum, including providers, who will be on the front lines of change as the new law takes effect. The law includes amendments to Medicare and Medicaid, and changes affecting program integrity and transparency reporting of provider payments by drug and device manufacturers and the disposal of unused medication.
The Importance of Accreditation
Accreditation is an important piece of the behavioral health industry puzzle. Treatment Centers should seek accreditation as soon as they can for many reasons. While most insurance payers don’t require Treatment Centers to be accredited, some payers have already made the shift to requiring accreditation before they will pay for the service rendered. Treatment Centers can choose accreditation at the state level through CARF. They can also opt to become accredited through JCAHO, which is accreditation at the national level.
Editorial: Opioid overdose deaths: A national catastrophe - Chicago Tribune
…Last year, according to a preliminary estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 72,000 lives were lost to overdoses. That’s 197 people dying every day — more than enough to fill a Boeing 737 passenger jet. It’s an increase of more than 6 percent over 2016.