The Chiropractic Office Billing Precision Index (BPI) started the new year 0.6% below its December 2007 mark of 18.8. Overall, January 2008 BPI reached 19.4, 1.7 below the national average of 17.7.
The January 2008 index, breaking a pattern established during the last three months of 2007, changed both its membership and the two lead positions: Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Illinois moved to the first lace, while CIGNA moved to the second, pushing Medicare Illinois down to the sixth place. The table below itemizes the January index, including its membership and the relative participant performance, as recorded in the Billing Precision's system.
- Billing Precision Index 19.4 - January 2008
- Blue Cross Blue Shield Illinois 4.7 (improved position from 2 and up from 8.1 in December)
- CIGNA 11.8 (improved position from 3 and down from 10.7 in December)
- Blue Cross Blue Shield New Jersey 12.4 (improved position from 4, up from 13.9 in December)
- Aetna 14.1 (improved position from 5, up from 14.8 in December)
- United Healthcare 14.4 (improved position from 6, up from 21.2 in December)
- Medicare Illinois 14.9 (lost its leadership position, down from 6.8 in December)
- Medicare New Jersey 21 (lost position from 6, down from 18.8 in December)
- GEICO 31.2 (same position, up from 35.2 in December)
- Blue Cross Blue Shield Georgia 40.3 (same position, up from 43.3 in December)
- Blue Cross Blue Shield South Carolina 58.2 (new participant, replacing Blue Cross Blue Shield Pennsylvania at 43.4 in December)
Coverage
The Billing Precision index starts 2008 with more stringent participation selection rules, expanding the total pool of participating providers to one hundred and sixty (from one hundred in 2007), and elevating the minimal processed volume limit to eight hundred (from six hundred in 2007) for all payers across all United States. BPI is rule-based, i.e., payer participation in the index is defined by a set of dynamic rules at the time of computation, rather than a static listing of specific payers. Therefore, any specific payer may start or discontinue participation in the index, dependent on satisfaction of the rule's conditions.
Update Cycle
Billing Precision updates BPI monthly and employs volume weighting to accommodate future growth of provided information, index combinations, and sensitivity across multiple indices,
Information Provided
BPI computes the percent of Accounts Receivable beyond 120 days. Note that national average across all medical specialties of percent of accounts receivable beyond 120 days is 17.7%.
Summary
BPI is a key billing performance characteristic, as it is a proxy of the claims that are never paid. BPI = 18.8 means that the average of ten top performing payers working with Billing Precision clients have 18.8% of Accounts Receivable beyond 120 days. Chiropractic office managers use the rule-based index to benchmark their billing performance and guide its improvement over time. Rule-based benchmarking also allows for the identification of elite payers, those that perform best in comparison to every payer in the country, as shown by the index-driven ranking.
Yuval Lirov, PhD, is author of 