High deductible health plans are now the norm. Clinicians and practice owners are having to spend more and more time acting as a collection agency and have less and less time available to actually treat patients.
What can you do to help improve your upfront patient collections so you aren’t spending so much time tracking down payments after time of service?
Verify Patient Benefits: Verify eligibility and benefit coverage before the initial appointment. After verification, you can estimate how much the patient will owe per visit and can collect that estimated payment at time of service.
Communicate: No patient likes to be surprised by a large or unexpected bill. Following verification, let your patients know how much of their deductible they have remaining and what that means for their patient responsibility.
Have a Process and Follow-Up Process for Patient Statements: Send them regularly and following a certain number of statements, call patients to remind them payment is needed and if it is still not made, have a process in place to send patients to a collection agency.
Hire the Right People: Make sure your front desk, billing, and operations staff are all on board with the patient collections process and can effectively and accurately verify benefits and communicate with patients.
