Medical Billing Collections

Nobody likes to deal with medical billing collections; not the doctors, who are frustrated at not being paid for services rendered, nor the patients, for whom it is a nuisance at best or a stress inducing nightmare at worst. But in order to get paid, resorting to medical debt collection is a necessary part of the billing process, and some methods get better results than others.

We are amazed at the number of doctors who say they want to improve their collections rate, yet still refuse to make it easy for their patients to pay their bill.

Hopefully you are not one of the doctors whose medical billing collections policy consists of just billing your patients a few times then turning them over to a medical collection agency. But if you are, you are unfortunately far from alone; many practices make just such a mistake, and wind up with a greater percentage of their bills going down the collections path. Let's take a closer look at how doctors can make just a few changes which will increase the likelihood of patients paying on time and reduce the number of bills that end up going to collections.

First, from the first time the patient calls your office to set up an appointment, you should let them know that you expect all patients to pay their co pays and/or deductible at the time of the visit. This should be reinforced again at the time of their first visit both in writing and verbally with one of your staff. Making that expectation known up front will prepare the patient to actually follow through and pay when they reach the checkout window.

Second, train your staff to actually collect the copay/deductible at the end of the patient visit at the checkout window. This not only enables you to get your money immediately, but also saves you the time and expense of billing your patients multiple times to get paid, IF you get paid at all.

Third, provide the ability for your patients to pay by debit and credit card in addition to check. Patients today increasingly expect to be able to use their credit cards; If you have not checked credit card rates in the last several years, you may be pleasantly surprised by how much the rates have gone down. An additional benefit: while your patient may not have the cash to pay their debt in full, they might be able to pay the entire bill using their credit card.

For information on business credit card processing, read this article.

Fourth, instruct your staff to work with patients who are having a difficult time financially due to circumstances beyond their control, such as severe health issues or loss of a job, to set up a payment plan. If they are making a good-faith effort to pay down their bill, resorting to medical billing collections may not be necessary.

Despite your best efforts with the above steps, it may become necessary at times to get the attention of patients that have the means to pay but have chosen not to. If the patient has not paid at the time of service nor after you have sent their first bill and has not made any effort to contact you about their reason for not paying, then you will want to consider sending a series of letters and ultimately turn them over to a medical debt collection agency.

Medical Billing Collections Letter #1 This letter is a friendly reminder of a late payment. The tone assumes an oversight on the patient's part that is easily remedied by methods you outline.

Medical Debt Collections Letter #2 If you receive no response after the first letter and any calls/messages have no result, use this letter as a follow up.

Medical Billing Collections Letter #3 If, after the first two letters you do not see any effort to make a payment, move on to this letter. Note the escalation of tone and urgency.

Medical Collections Resources If you are considering doing your own medical-billing-collections, these resources and links will help you to stay in compliance with the many related Federal and State laws.

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