Collecting Medical Bad Debt Guide

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A Guide To Collecting Medical Bad Debt

Collecting medical bad debt is a growing problem in today's economy. Medical facilites, clinics, hospitals, dentists and other healthcare providers face increasing challenges in today's slow economy.

With upwards of 47 million Americans without any healthcare coverage, alongwith rising unemployment brought on by a sluggish real estate and other industries, tightening credit markets, and other problems, medical practitioners are experiencing the squeeze with higher and higher numbers of delinquent accounts and medical debt.

Here are some steps you should take to better improve your cash flow, and improve on your accounts receivable.

Get As Much Information As Possible

Before you render medical service, obtain the patient's full name, social security number, and date of birth. Should the account ever need to be turned over for collections, the social security number will prove very helpful. You should also get addresses, home, work and cell phone numbers, email addresses, as well as the name of a relative.

Its also very important to verify insurance coverage, if any, at the beginning. As many medical offices are both understaffed and busy, leaving out this most important step is very costly to your bottom line.

Your office, as well as the patient, needs to know upfront if coverage is current, what's covered and not covered, as well as patient's responsibility for payment. This avoids later confusion, and your office can more proactive in offering payment arrangements and options to your patient, should that be necessary.

Establish a Clear Payment Policy Upfront

There is often much confusion over deductibles, co-pays, insurance coverage, etc. Its good policy to spell out your payment policies clearly, in the beginning before service is rendered, to avoid misunderstandings later.

Another reason this is so important is that past due medical bills tend to become less important after the patient has received service and is feeling better. Other bills, such as credit cards, car payments, the mortgage, etc. take precedence over a past due doctor bill.

Also, by having clear and consistent in house efforts: follow up phone calls and sending timely statements every 15-30 days, will help you identify "problem" patients early on. Patients who are communicating with your office and/or are experiencing financial hardships can be handled differently from those truly ignoring your communications.

You should outsource the more difficult accounts sooner rather than later for better recovery success.

Turn Non-Performing Accounts Over To A Collection Agency

While your office may have some internal collections functions, such as sending repeated statements, phone calls, etc., knowing when you've exhausted your best efforts at collecting will save lots of time, money, as well as reduce office stress.

If you haven't received payment, or made payment arrangements with your delinquent patients, its time to consider hiring a third party collection agency for your medical bad debt.

After 60 days, and no later than 90 days, of no payment, outsource these to a debt recovery agency. Not only are they more skilled and proficient in collecting, but the earlier they're turned over, the better the recovery success rate.

DebtCollectionSteps.com has successfully advised medical practice facilities all over the United States, and helped them recover thousands in lost profits and medical debt.

Contact us, or complete our simple quote form below. We'll be happy to help your medical practice recover on your medical bad debt too!

Collection Agency Quote Request

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