On January 1, 2024, Marriage and Family Therapists (MFT) and Mental Health Counselors (MHC) became eligible to enroll in Medicare to be compensated for rendered services to Medicare beneficiaries. We previously wrote about this exciting new rule change in December’s newsletter Therapy Brands Blog Post: Marriage and Family Therapists (“MFT”) and Mental Health Counselors (“MHCs”) Providers May Now Enroll in Medicare. Until this year, MFTs and MHCs were statutorily excluded from Medicare participation, which meant providers did not need to bill Medicare first in order to submit claims to a Medicare beneficiary’s secondary insurance carrier, such as Medicaid.   

However, we are beginning to see secondary insurance carriers require a Medicare denial before processing a secondary claim for MFTs and MHCs.  We are advising our MFT and MHC licensed customers to check with their billing department to understand if they’re seeing any impact to their claim processing time for Medicare beneficiaries.  For Therapy Brands customers who receive Revenue Cycle Management services, your account manager can help you navigate these changes, including steps you can take to avoid any delays.