In June, the Chiropractic Office Billing Precision Index (BPI) gained 4.2 points above its May mark - making up all of the lost ground in May and outperforming April. Overall, June BPI reached 17.6 outperforming the national average of 17.7 by 0.1, and 2.1 points away from its best record of 15.5 in March of 2008.

Breaking the pattern established in April and confirmed in May, the June index, replaced two participants, namely, GEICO and Blue Cross Blue Shield South Carolina, with Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan and State Faarm - a veteran and a new index participant, returning at 14.9 and debuting 41.1, in the fifth and ninth place respectively. Both GEICO and Blue Cross Blue Shield South Carolina first gained their participation in May, only to be replaced in June. Medicare South Carolina managed to keep its participation in spite of losing score from 39.2 to 46.1 and dropping from eighth down to tenth position. Note that BCBS Illinois not only maintained its top placement but also improved the score from 4.5 up to 2.4, while Medicare Illinois and Aetna returned to their traditional second and third placed, pushing back down United Healthcare and CIGNA.

Billing Precision Index 17.6 - June 2008

1. Blue Cross Blue Shield Illinois 2.4
2. Medicare Illinois 10.5
3. Aetna 11.8
4. United Healthcare 13.3
5. Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan 14.9
6. CIGNA 15.4
7. Blue Cross Blue Shield New Jersey 20.6
8. Medicare New Jersey 27
9. State Faarm 41.1 (new participant)
10. Medicare South Carolina 46.1

BPI is an important billing performance characteristic because it approximates the proportion of claims that are never paid. BPI = 17.6 means that the average of ten top performing payers, used by the patients of Billing Precision providers, reached 17.6% of Accounts Receivable beyond 120 days.

This welcome improvement comes at the same time as the nation's doctors are fighting to hold off a ten percent fee cut in Medicare payments that was slated to kick in on July 1. The Congress is given extra time to prevent the reduction by simply holding off the processing of the claims for the first ten days of July for July dates of service. If successful, this delay should have low impact on providers' overall monthly cash flow because Medicare claim payments take 14 days (29 days for paper claims) after the date of receipt. Meanwhile, all claims for services delivered on or before June 30, 2008, are processed and paid under normal procedures.

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.



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