UHC ER Attestation Policy for Emergency Room Medical Billing
UHC announced a surprising new ‘Non-Emergent’ policy for Emergency Room use. In recent years, UHC has been stricter in billing ER visits, in what some may say is a real need to drive down unnecessary Emergency Room use. While the growing need for patient education in the proper place of service care is prevalent; UHC challenges the Medical Community with new policies intending to punish providers for simply providing mandatory care in Emergency settings. UHC should be focusing its efforts on Patient Education. Emergency Room Providers have an ethical duty and are required by law to stabilize and treat any emergency patient; however, UHC seems more and more intent on punishing them for holding to their code of ethics – which could potentially be violating some state laws by pressuring providers for rendering treatment based off Prudent Layperson Standards. This new policy, which UHC has temporarily delayed due to increasing backlash from the medical community, would require the treating physician to not only treat the patient – but then to go back after the claim has already been billed and have them detail the emergency need; the same emergency need that is generally well defined in the medical records in the first place. 360 Medical Billing Solutions we are dedicated to the fight against provider penalization and are working alongside the AMA, ACEP, and local State Agencies to mitigate the damages this new Attestation policy could hazard. While UHC has temporarily halted the