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Extending Credit to Patients Can Help Physicians Manage Those Who Can’t Pay

by Kurt Ullman • September 30, 2015

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“Practices are facing the need to financially work around high deductibles and copayments,” said Dahl. “There are many patients in those circumstances today, and physicians, as well as their administrators, need to begin to look closely at these issues and develop responses.”

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Explore This Issue
October 2015

Kurt Ullman is a freelance medical writer based in New Jersey.

Establish Credit Practices

enciktepstudio/shutterstock.com

Image Credit: enciktepstudio/shutterstock.com

Before you extend credit to customers, establish detailed policies and make sure you understand consumer protection laws.

  1. Determine who you will extend credit to; run credit checks on all patients before you agree to extend credit.
  2. Develop clear, consistent payment guidelines. Your bills should indicate when payment is due, when it will be considered delinquent, and whom to contact with questions.
  3. Determine how you will bill or invoice patients: Will you mail requests for payment, or will you hire an outside company to handle it?
  4. Create a plan for collecting late or defaulted payments. Be sure to get all of your patient’s information in writing. In return, provide them with a copy of your payment policy, which spells out how penalties will be applied to late payments and how you will handle unpaid bills. It’s important to have this documentation in case a fraudulent or delinquent credit transaction occurs.

Source: U.S. Small Business Administration

Resources

Extending credit to your patients can be an imposing task. There are a number of websites available to help you assess the positives and negatives for your particular situation:

  1. Healthcare Financial Man-agement Administration (hfma.org): The site includes a financial communications program to help guide staff in ways to conduct financial conversations with patients.
  2. Medical Group Management Association (mgma.com): Includes a step-by-step guide to improving your billing statements.

Pages: 1 2 3 | Single Page

Filed Under: Departments, Practice Management Tagged With: copay, credit, deductible, healthcare costs, insuranceIssue: October 2015

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