Recovering bad debt for private medical practices and doctors
25 Jan 2008 by Mr.M.Reeves MICM, Dr.C.A.Jenner MB BS, FRCA
Recovering bad debt for private medical practices and doctors
Doctors in private practice often have problems with outstanding medical fees and bad debt, in particular regarding self-funding patients. There are ways to recover these outstanding monies. In order to prevent having to resort to these methods, it is a far better use of time and resources to establish an efficient medical billing process. This will go a long way towards eliminating the risk of outstanding medical fees and bad debts.
There are a number of steps that will allow you with a professional and efficient billing system in place.
1. Following consultations, clinics or procedures, rapid issuing of invoices.
2. The invoice should state patient information,payment terms and the fee amount.
3. Two written reminders should be scheduled for sending.
4. All payments made should be logged.
5. All reminders should be sent promptly explaining that the payment is due immediately.
6. Telephone reminders are helpful.
7. If payment has still not been received, offer other methods of payment such as card payment with credit and debit cards.
To ensure the medical billing process is as quick as possible it is always best to use electronic patient billing, rather than traditional paper billing. If it becomes difficult to contact the debtor, the earlier you involve a third party collections agent, the more likely you are to recover the monies owed. Most debt collectors will charge for this service, often on a sliding scale depending on the age of the debt.
A lot of debt can be prevented by using pre-payment systems; that is taking payment for consultations and procedures in advance. The majority of people are used to this type of transaction normally.
FMP Limited have extensive experience in providing electronic medical billing and pre-payment solutions for these self-pay patients.
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