preview

Cost Based Reimbursement Essay

Decent Essays

First of all let us understand the concept of third party payer. Third-party payers are the insurers that reimburse health services organizations and hence are the major source of revenues for most providers. large proportion of provider revenues does not come directly from patients (the users of healthcare services) but from insurers, known collectively as third-party payers. It include private insurers, such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and public (government) insurers, such as Medicare and Medicaid. Third-party payers use several reimbursement methods to pay providers, depending on the specific payer (e.g., the Blues versus Medicare) and the type of service rendered (e.g., inpatient versus outpatient).

We can highlight the major third-party …show more content…

this reimbursement is retrospective in the sense that reimbursement is based on what has happened in the past. Cost based reimbursement is limited to allowable costs, usually defined as costs directly related to the provision of healthcare services. In practical use, cost-based reimbursement guarantees that a provider’s costs will be covered by revenues generated from the delivery of those services.

Charge-Based Reimbursement

.

In this system, when payers pay billed charges, they pay according to a rate schedule, called a charge master, established by the provider. To a many extent, this reimbursement system places payers at the mercy of providers, especially in markets where competition is limited. In the very early days of health insurance, all payers reimbursed providers on the basis of charges. At prssent the trend is shifting toward other, less generous reimbursement methods, and the only payers expected to pay the full amount of charges are self-pay (private-pay)

Get Access