Draw the boundary before the handoff
Start with a written cutover boundary: which dates of service and open work belong to the outgoing biller, the incoming biller, or your practice?
Do not use “the new company handles billing” as the entire plan. Specify responsibility for unsubmitted encounters, claims awaiting payer responses, denials, appeals, payment posting, secondary claims, and patient balances.
For a therapy practice, also identify who will resolve missing intake information, authorization questions, or documentation corrections. Assign those handoffs without treating clinical documentation as the biller’s decision.
Keep old AR on its own track
Ask who will continue working old accounts receivable, what access that person needs, and how you will review unresolved balances. Confirm the outgoing biller’s obligations against your agreement rather than assuming a standard run-out period.
Keep the start-date boundary visible in reporting. A payment received after the switch may relate to an earlier encounter; define who will post it and follow up on any remaining balance.
Do not assume the new engagement includes inherited-AR cleanup. At Brace Health, inherited AR is excluded from standard service. Any limited exception requires approval and a fully executed addendum with a defined scope.
Preserve the information needed to act
Before access changes, confirm that the responsible team can reach the records it needs: claim history, payer responses, payment detail, documentation, and prior follow-up notes.
Request a baseline of open work, not just a total AR balance. For each unresolved item, record:
- Current status and the last meaningful action.
- The person or team responsible.
- The next action and review date.
- Any information or access still missing.
Confirm how updates will be visible to your practice. Avoid unnecessary simultaneous changes to the EMR, clearinghouse, and staff workflow; document any change the transition actually requires.
Give your staff a clear handoff
Tell the front desk and clinicians where billing questions go after cutover. Specify who requests missing information, who provides it, and how the billing team knows the correction is ready.
Agree on an escalation path for issues that remain unresolved. Close communication should come with named responsibilities—not an expectation that the practice owner will discover every stalled item.
Use one readiness test
Before starting, ask: If a pre-cutover claim receives a payer response tomorrow, who sees it, who acts, and where is the next step recorded?
Then ask the same question for a new encounter. If either answer is unclear, resolve the ownership or access gap before treating the handoff as complete.
After cutover, compare open work with the baseline and review items that lack a response or next action. Use that review to distinguish unfinished old work from new billing activity.
Plan the switch around your practice
A calendar date alone is not a transition plan. Bring your current workflow, open-work inventory, and service-scope questions to the incoming billing partner.
Talk with a Brace expert about the responsibilities and access your therapy practice needs before making the switch.