New Practices for United Healthcare

I, like you, receive bulletins from the insurance companies in which our clients' participate. Two things recently came to my attention regarding United Healthcare. First they are automatically enrolling providers in Electronic Payments and Statements.

When you have received paper checks from United Healthcare, you have endorsed the check, and deposited it in your bank. Very simply done. Well if you follow the check further, it gets endorsed by your bank and then returned to United Healthcare.

United Healthcare has announced they are taking your bank endorsement information off the back of the endorsed check and using that to enroll providers in Electronic Funds Transfer. So if you stop receiving paper checks and you notice strange deposits in your bank account that may be the reason.

You can opt out of Automatic Electronic Funds Transfer if you fall under certain criteria, one of which is the size of your monthly filing to UHC. Twenty five claims or less will allow you to claim an exemption. But may not keep you from being automatically enrolled. It will just give you a basis to opt out should you find yourself enrolled.

The next change is a bit more helpful. UHC is adding to their website, and therefore, only available to in-network providers, Electronic Claim Reconsideration With Attachments option. You'll find this on the Optum Cloud Dashboard. (Optum is the new name for United Healthcare Products, the website and the name you have been seeing on the reimbursement checks.)

You may have noticed the 'Claim Adjustment' button on the claim details page. You are currently allowed to pick a reason and add narrative. What their adding here is an option to upload a document to back up your request.

This will be helpful to file proof of timely filing or an authorization letter for a claim that has been denied. It will be quicker than a phone call. You'll receive a tracking number to use when making a web inquiry on the status of your reconsideration request. You can always follow up with a phone call.

This probably means they will have fewer operators available for customer service inquiries. But that does not come as a surprise. What surprised me is the automatic enrollment in Electronic Payments. Keep a watch out so you are not surprised!!

Have a great 4th of July!! Be safe, Be happy!!