Until 1998, nurse center billing was quite an easy thing to do since skilled nurse facilities (SNFs) could bill separately for their service. Since 1998, after the Balance Budget Act came into effect, several things about how SNFs claim their reimbursement have changed. The points below will outline the changes:
Challenges of Skilled Nursing Facility Billing
Producing SNF claims as part of consolidated billing requires the knowledge of codes as also familiarity with what is covered by Medicare A and what’s not. If something is not covered by Medicare A, then it may be covered by Medicare B. The SNF has to identify that and bill it separately.
On the other hand, payment on per diem basis means a fixed amount CMS pays to SNFs under Medicare A with which SNFs pay contracted nursing service providers for their services.
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Now SNFs have to produce their claim as part of consolidated billing under the Prospective Payment System (PPS)
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SNFs are paid by Medicare A on a per diem basis
Skilled Nursing Facility billing operates within one of the most regulatory-dense reimbursement frameworks in post-acute care — where revenue is governed by PDPM component capture, accurate RUG classification, and the precise documentation of therapy minutes, nursing intensity, and non-therapy ancillary services that CMS and payers audit continuously.
MBC acts as your Revenue Integrity Partner by ensuring that every SNF stay is reimbursed to its highest defensible PDPM accuracy, ICD-10 diagnosis sequencing correctly reflects clinical complexity, and payer policies around consolidated billing, Medicare Part A spell-of-illness management, and Minimum Data Set (MDS) assessment windows are executed with precision — so your facility retains every dollar it clinically justifies.
The state of Alaska though considered far from the mainland states, still we provide medical billing services in Alaska with the same level of service and integrity. Our local Alaskan medical billing specialists have more than 15 years of experience cater to multiple medical specialties.
Their expert knowledge and skilled professionalism has had many physicians from across all major cities like Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, College, and Ketchikan concentrate more on patient care. These physicians can personally vouch for the medical billing experience of these billers in Alaska. You too can experience the same expertise with your billing process with their help across these medical billing functions:
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Eligibility verifications
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Electronic and paper claim submission
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Payment as well as adjustment posting
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Claims denial management
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Patient statement services
Comprehensive Medical Billing Services in Alaska
With specialized medical billing services in Alaska, MBC provides services in major cities like Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, College, and Ketchikan. Our experienced medical billing specialists, with over 25 years of expertise, ensure accurate coding, seamless claim submissions, and effective denial management.
Our coders are skilled in adhering to HIPAA compliance and privacy guidelines. Our professionals guarantee secure and efficient billing operations tailored to the unique needs of Alaskan healthcare providers.
Enhancing Revenue and Reducing Costs for Alaska Practices
MBC’s medical billing experts in Alaska are adept at delivering customized solutions that comply with state-specific regulations while supporting federal efforts to reduce healthcare costs. By outsourcing medical billing responsibilities to our team, practices can experience up to a 20% improvement in collections, allowing physicians to prioritize patient care.
Our specialists excel in critical billing tasks, including:
- Eligibility verifications
- Electronic and paper claim submissions
- Payment and adjustment posting
- Claims denial management
- Patient statement services
By streamlining revenue cycles through accurate coding, detailed code audits, and consistent insurance follow-ups, we aim to enhance cash flows and minimize errors in the billing process. Whether you’re in Anchorage or any other city in Alaska, our comprehensive medical billing services are designed to meet your unique requirements and help your practice.
Nursing Facilities are exposed to the below problems
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Inaccuracy of codes applied leading to rejection of claims
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Insufficiency of knowledge of items covered by Medicare A and B
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Fixed or per diem payments for services not accommodating cost borne by the nursing facility adequately - given that there is a degree of cost elasticity in the range of services offered by facilities, which the fixed rates often fail to encompass
The above two scenarios expose nursing facilities to two kinds of revenue leakage: one is via rejected claims; another is through underpayment of services.
Additionally, it’s often difficult to establish that the patient required the services provided by a nursing facility and excessive time spent on non-medical activities.
Outsourcing Skilled Nurse Facility Billing to MBC
MBC has helped nursing centers both in rural and urban US (more in rural as that’s where nursing facilities are mostly concentrated) across all 50 US states, to improve their revenues by reducing reimbursement rejection rates and increasing their focus on nursing services.
MBC’s billers and coders come with extensive knowledge of billing and coding intricacies so that they can take care of the entire cycle of billing and coding needs starting from identifying patient eligibility for reimbursement to accurately separating items covered by Medicare A and Medicare B. They also perform post-claim-submission follow-ups to ensure timely reimbursement of payments by CMS.
Skilled Nursing Facilities lose significant revenue through inaccurate PDPM component scoring, missed non-therapy ancillary charges, and consolidated billing violations that trigger claim reductions and audit exposure without internal detection.
MBC's Revenue Diagnostic evaluates your SNF billing at the payer, stay, and assessment level — identifying where PDPM case-mix capture is underperforming, which Part A and Part B claims are failing adjudication and why, and how your AR aging and Medicare census mix compare against post-acute benchmarks. The output is a clear, actionable breakdown of the revenue your facility is currently leaving uncollected.Our flexible service models ensure that you can choose a solution that fits your needs and setup. We offer varied service models including in-house service model; where providers can source in-house skilled nursing facility billers and coders through the MBC job portal.
If you don’t have an inbuilt team of billers and coders nor any need to have one, our outsourced billing and coding model will suit you helping you to ship out all your billing and coding responsibilities to us, so that you can solely concentrate on the delivery of nursing care.
Our outsourcing model includes the entire range of billing and coding activities starting from identifying insurance eligibility of the patient to submission of claims and post-submission follow-ups.
Our RCM consulting model involves a thorough study of your revenue management cycle to spot areas of revenue leakage and plug them by helping reduce outdated or cumbersome processes, and assist in replacing inept software applications with new ones customized to your need and environment along with help in training people where required.
Skilled Nursing Facility billing is a census-driven, compliance-intensive discipline where PDPM miscalculation, MDS timing errors, and consolidated billing gaps compound across every resident stay — quietly eroding margins that facilities cannot recover retroactively.
MBC helps SNFs Yield your EBITDA by maximizing reimbursement accuracy across all five PDPM payment components, reducing denials on Part A stays and Part B therapy claims, and ensuring that every billable service delivered — from high-acuity nursing care to non-therapy ancillary utilization — is captured, coded, and collected in full. The result is a billing operation that turns your daily census directly into sustainable financial performance.
MBC national network also comes with local knowledge and familiarity so that we understand your operating environment and help you meet your state-and-location specific needs.
