Clinical Social Work Practice Tools:
Reimbursement

NASW receives questions from clinical social workers about how to terminate their contracts as insurance providers and move to a private pay fee-for-service practice. This practice perspective highlights several important steps to facilitate the transition.

Clinical social workers (CSWs) in private practice make decisions as they manage their practice about accepting insurance,cash payments, and contracting with alternative payers.

On August 13, 2018 10,000 clinical social workers (CSWs) who are Medicare Part B providers received a letter from Global Tech containing results of a Comparative Billing Report (CBR) for Licensed Clinical Social Workers. The Practice Alert provides more information based on NASW review of the report and additional information provided by Global Tech.

NASW frequently receives questions from clinical social workers who want to hire social workers who do not have a clinical license or other mental health professionals (LPCs, LMFTs,etc.) and bill insurance for their services.Medicare allows for clinical social workers (CSWs) to deliver services as an independent provider or as a provider incident to a physician.

The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015 requires removal of the Social Security-Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) from all Medicare cards by April 2019.

NASW encourages its members to provide their professional expertise during the  development of the International Classification of Diseases, Eleventh Edition, Clinical Modification (ICD-11-CM).  The World Health Organization’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse has formed a global network of mental health professionals to develop the next version of the Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders of the ICD-11.