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Scenario:  You are offering services in California to a college student who uses her parent’s insurance from New Hampshire.

How do you handle the billing for this case, where an out of state member is seeking mental health services in your state?

Here are the important things to ask yourself:

1) Are you in-network with your local Blue Cross Blue Shield?

1b) Are they affiliated with other big name insurance companies?  (E.g. Magellan owns some of Blue Shield CA’s mental health coverage under the brand “Blue Shield MHSA”).

2)  Does this patient have in-network coverage with their Blue Cross Blue Shield plan?

If you said Yes for #1, you are set to serve as an in-network provider for their plan, even if it comes from out of state.  If they have a strange plan that’s subcontracted/owned by another big insurance company, you will need to call them to ask where to file the claims.

If you said Yes for #2, you can see them!

File your claims to your local Blue Cross Blue Shield.

And if you have questions about how to handle these sort of cases automatically using our billing service, don’t hesitate to contact us!