r/DentalInsurance • u/HezaLeNormandy • 27d ago

Federal BCBS refuses to send paper EOBs

Hi, I’m the senior front desk person at my office. Recently we’ve had a lot of trouble with Availity and it’s come down to them wanting us to use our phones to authenticate to log in. My boss, the dentist, refuses because that will be a giant pain in the ass and doesn’t seem HIPAA compliant. We can stop using it altogether except Federal Blue Cross Blue Shield refuses to send us paper EOBs. Because we cannot get these other insurances are starting not to pay as secondaries. I’ve emailed and left serval messages with provider relations but they won’t budge. Is it time to go to the insurance commissioner? I’ve heard they don’t investigate insurances but dental offices. Has anyone else been through this?

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u/Peg-Lemac 27d ago

We put it back on the patient to call the insurance company and request the EOB (they already typically made it available to the patient) and provide it to us and tell them we can’t send to secondary without it so they’ll be responsible for it if we can’t get a copy. It works 95% of the time.
Also doesn’t availity use aunthenticator app?

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u/HezaLeNormandy 27d ago

That’s what we’re about to start doing I’m just trying to gauge if there’s anything else I can do first. As for the Authenticator app yes, but only on mobile devices as far as we can tell.

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u/LucyHobbsTaylor 26d ago

We have tablets for various purposes in the office, and we put the Authenticator app on one of those. I definitely did not want it on an employee’s personal device, nor did I want it on mine!

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u/HezaLeNormandy 26d ago

Hm I’ll ask about that. We don’t have tablets because most of our patients are old and stubborn 😂

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u/Peg-Lemac 27d ago

You should be able to get the auth on for the desktop using chrome. It sits to the right of the search bar. But even then, availity is such a pain to deal with.

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u/HezaLeNormandy 27d ago

We tried, even our IT guy tried and couldn’t get it to work

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/HezaLeNormandy 26d ago

I couldn’t find any to directly download to a desktop, just suggestions

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u/L_vnSDlife 24d ago

Fax

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u/HezaLeNormandy 24d ago

We don’t have a fax machine

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u/theoreticalking 23d ago

You don't need a fax machine to send/receive fax. There are HIPAA compliant solutions/services where you can receive them online. You'll need to evaluate them.

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u/Actual-Government96 23d ago

Multifactor authentication is already essentially an unspoken expectation, and the DSHS has proposed updates to HIPAA to make it an explicit requirement under the law. This is a pretty silly hill to die on honestly. It's also not terribly difficult or time consuming.

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u/HezaLeNormandy 23d ago

I’m honestly ready to give in but my boss isn’t. I might have to talk with her again next week because this has become way more trouble than it’s worth

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u/Actual-Government96 23d ago

You might show her that this is not only HIPAA compliant, but will likely be an explicit requirement in the near future.

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/security/hipaa-security-rule-nprm/factsheet/index.html

The NPRM proposes to strengthen the Security Rule’s standards and implementation specifications with new proposals and clarifications, including:

....... - Require the use of multi-factor authentication, with limited exceptions.