Optimize Patient Collections in 3 Steps

Optimizing Patient Collections

Long gone are the days of $25 co-pays and $250 deductibles. With the increasing prevalence of high deductible insurance and patient cost-sharing plans, it has never been more important to the financial health of your practice to have an efficient patient pre-collections program in place. Less than 50% of these up front balances are ever recovered, placing a great burden directly on a clinic’s revenue due to “bad debt.”

At this year’s mid-year mark, can your practice afford your current record of unpaid bills in write-offs?

3 Steps Toward Optimizing Patient Collections

Clinical staff play a key role in patient collections. At Merem Healthcare Solutions, we work with our client partners to develop a Patient “Pre-Collections” strategy that is both aggressive and fair. Following these three tips will help your clinical staff to develop a Point-of-Service (POS) collections process to effectively collect more money up-front.

1. Constantly update a record of unpaid bills and review it with upcoming appointments.

Typical patient collection efforts only go as far as issuing statements and generating “bad debt” reports of accounts that need to be turned over to collections.

We can provide you with custom reports such as a payment plan list, to aid in POS collection efforts and to ensure patients meet their terms

2. Clearly communicate with your patients that outstanding bills are expected to be paid prior to their clinic visit.

When you can discuss these matters prior to the procedure date, patients are more likely to be receptive and proactive rather than distracted or caught off guard and agitated about any unexpected financial obligations. Also, you will help patients to better prepare financially for their visit and open the opportunity to provide payment options prior to sending to collections.

With MEREM Health, you will have the added support of a patient collections representative to support your billing team. Our patient collections reps work diligently to collect patient balances in full or to make payment arrangements within 90 days and will help you identify and transmit delinquent accounts to a third-party collections agency of your choice.

3. Train your clinic staff to prompt the patient for payment

This is a guaranteed technique in the effort to increase practice revenue but it requires a strategic and passionate approach. As you inform patients’ preemptively of what they will owe for their care, the more likely you are to get paid.

Discussion of a patient’s financial obligation should begin prior to receiving treatment. Many consumers lack a clear understanding of their insurance coverages and are often unable to determine their financial responsibilities themselves.

Keep explanations simple in order to help ensure patients understand what is expected of them and help avoid confusion or discourage them from listening to or reading information. Also, be sure your staff are prepared and available to answer any questions.

For more information about our Patient Pre Collections Services, visit our website. www.MEREMHealth.com

MEREM Healthcare Solutions is a Birmingham, AL-based company that has been providing exceptional medical billing and coding services to physician practices and ambulatory surgical centers since 2008. We pride ourselves on not just maintaining, but exceeding, the level of accountability, communication, and customer service that is valued in traditional, on-site billing departments.

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