Weblogs are going mainstream. AOL has announced that they will support weblogs in some form, and here's an interesting article on the business potential of weblogs.
.. And while we're on business .. here's one that goes right to the bottom line: most family physicians don't charge for the reading of a TB test. "Oh gosh," you say .. "it takes only a few seconds .. so why should we bother charging for it?" But this update from the AAFP suggests that we SHOULD charge for it.
Some thoughts:
- Charging for a PPD reading requires that we make an encounter form and fill it out for the visit
- We would have to bill the insurance company
- The patient would have to pay a co-pay
- So if the co-pay is $15 (not unusual these days), the patient would be paying $30 for the placement of a PPD and its reading. This doesn't seem right.
So there's norhting WRONG with charging for this service, but I'm not certain that charging for the service is the RIGHT thing to do. I wonder if all of the insurance companies agree with us that this should be a separate bill. If we send the bill and they don't pay … attempting to charge for it (time, bills, etc) would cost more than not charging for it at all!
