Patient Financial Services
The Patient Financial Services Department at Ashe Memorial Hospital encompasses both the front-end and back-end processing of your visit to Ashe Memorial Hospital. Our Admitting/Registration Department manages your access to the hospital. We register all patients, including inpatient, emergency patients, ancillary patients, long-term care patients, etc. We gather your demographic information and insurance information as accurately as possible. This may require asking you several questions and copying your insurance cards. We also pre-register and pre-admit as much as possible so that your insurance company is aware of your impending visit and can make any pre-certifications if necessary. Our Admitting/Registration Department registers over 35,000 patient accounts per year and fulfills many other duties in its 24-hour schedule.
The information gathered in Admitting/Registration flows over into the Billing Department, which files your visit’s charges with your insurance company, including Medicare and Medicaid. The insurance industry’s requirements for filing your claims are very diverse and stringent. With approximately 45,000 claims to file annually, our Billing employees keep up-to-date on these regulations to get as much covered as possible for your visit. This sometimes involves constant contact with insurance companies to get accounts resolved. The Billing Department also fulfills many regulatory duties such as reporting data to Medicare and Medicaid and other government and non-government entities.
Any balance not covered by insurance is then dealt with by the hospital’s Business Office via Financial Counselors and Cashiers. The Financial Counselors are here to assess your situation and to help you get your balance settled. This sometimes involves follow-up with you via telephone and letters and assessments to apply for financial assistance.
Our Business Office is committed to trying to help you with your billing. We are continuously trying to improve our processes, including improvement of our bills and statements, customer relations, and other functions. With eight staff members on both the access and the billing sides of our Patient Financial Services Department, we have decades of experience in admissions, billing, collections, and reporting. Our commitment is excellence in performance to serve you during your visit at Ashe Memorial Hospital.
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