What the service provider owns, and what stays with the client

A three-way split across the client, Akontec and your floor — plus the eight things that sit outside the engagement in every circumstance.

Responsibility split

Function	Client	Akontec	Service provider
Practice management system, licences and access	Owns	Coordinates	Uses
Clearinghouse contract and payer enrolments	Owns	—	—
Physician documentation quality	Owns	Reports gaps	Flags queries
Coding, entry, posting and follow-up production	—	Governs	Owns
Hiring, payroll and floor supervision	—	Sets standards	Owns
Quality audit and calibration	Reviews	Runs calibration	Owns internal audit
Process manual, templates and workflow standards	—	Owns	Uses
Security controls on the delivery floor	Audits	Audits	Owns
Commercial relationship and invoicing	Pays Akontec	Owns	Invoices Akontec
Refund and write-off approvals	Owns	—	Prepares only

Out of scope

Explicitly outside the engagement

These are not chargeable extras and they are not available by agreement at floor level. A request to perform any of them is an escalation, not a task.

Any contact with a patient, in any channel, for any reason.
Outbound collection activity on patient balances.
Clinical judgement, or any change to what the physician documented.
Signing off write-offs, refunds or adjustments.

Selecting a code the documentation does not support, at anyone's request.
Holding, printing or storing protected health information outside the client system.
Sub-contracting any part of the work, or moving it to a second site, without written consent.
Using a productivity or workflow tool that reads, stores or transmits PHI without written approval.

The out-of-scope register exists for a reason. When a practice manager asks for something outside this section, the answer is recorded rather than argued. That record protects your floor if the request is later described as an agreed instruction.

Allocation

How work reaches the floor

Work is not pushed to agents by a supervisor with a spreadsheet. Each function has a queue inside the client's practice management system, filtered by specialty, payer and age. The queue is prioritised by standing rule — ageing claims approaching a timely-filing limit rise, high-value denials rise, and items blocked on a client query drop out of the production count rather than sitting against an agent's score.

Allocation is by competence, not by availability. An agent certified on behavioural health does not receive radiology charts because the radiology queue is long. The team leader may reallocate across queues only where the receiving agent holds the relevant certification on the skills matrix, which is maintained by the trainer and audited monthly by Akontec.

Every touch is recorded against the claim with a reason code, a next action and a next review date. An AR touch with no documented next action is treated as an error even where the claim later pays, because it destroys the trail the next agent needs and it makes the ageing report unreadable.

Items the team cannot resolve without the client — missing documentation, an ambiguous note, a coverage question — go to a single query desk with a standard format. Queries are batched twice daily, not raised individually, and the open-query log is reviewed on the weekly call.

Standing documents

Document	Maintained by	Reviewed	Purpose
Process manual	Service provider, approved by Akontec	Quarterly	The end-to-end method for every queue, screen by screen
Payer rule register	Akontec	Monthly	Payer-specific edits, filing limits and appeal windows
Skills and certification matrix	Service provider trainer	Monthly	Who may work which specialty and which queue
Error dictionary	Joint	Quarterly	Every defect type, its severity and its owner
Out-of-scope register	Akontec	As raised	Requests refused at floor level and the outcome

Next step

Scope is settled before contracting, not during delivery.

The responsibility split above is reproduced verbatim in Schedule A. Nothing in it is a placeholder for a later negotiation.

See the team and seat mix Apply to deliver