During our recent webinar, Lost Revenue Found – Capturing What’s Due, moderator Pamela L. Moore hit on a hot-button issue for many practices – financial policies. She discussed many of your questions with our panel of practice administrators and billing specialists. However, it seems that many attendees could use additional help defining what policies they should have in place and how those policies should be shaped.
Here is a collection of resources to help you answer those questions.
Effective financial policies not only provide your staff with backup if patients question payment requests, but applying policies consistently can help you avoid discrimination lawsuits. Even more importantly, effective financial policies can help your practice capture revenue that might otherwise go unpaid for weeks, months or even longer.
Ideas of what to include in your financial policy:
- When are co-pays collected
- What types of payment are accepted
- Will discounts be offered (in what specific circumstances)
- Will any additional fees be charged (missed appointments, service fees, bounced checks, etc.)
- Will you require deposits for certain procedures
- How do you handle self-pay, uninsured patients
- Will your practice offer payment plans
- How many statements will you send
- What is your process for turning accounts over to collections
- Will you dismiss patients that have not paid
This collection of articles from Physicians Practice provides guidance on a variety of topics related to creating effective policies.
Patients, Pay Up: You’d Better have a Financial Policy
Show Me the Money: Working Well with Your Collection Agency
Dealing With Discounts: The Bigger Picture
Keeping Credit Card Numbers on File
Patient Dismissal
Collecting Patient Balances
Billing & Collections: Playing Hardball
Get Paid for What You Do: Charging for Noncovered Services in Your Practice
Tips from our panelists
Practice administrator for Brookwood Internists, Nora Manderson, emphasized the importance of referencing your payer contracts. At her practice they look very closely at payer contracts for guidance on a variety of financial policy details such as writing off charges for indigent patients and offering professional discounts.
One question that came up several times had to do with charging for no-shows. Nora’s position is, “We would love to be able to charge for no-shows, but our major payer here is Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama and they basically forbid charging the patient for anything that is not a physician-rendered service.”
Situations like this show why it is so important to check your contracts while drafting your policies. Arie Cusato, billing manager for Seacoast Orthopedics & Sports Medicine suggests also checking the regulations in your state, which you can do by visiting your state's medical association or medical society websites.
For instance, in New Hampshire where Arie’s practice is located, practices are only allowed to collect payment at the time of service. She pointed out the difficulty of doing this for elective procedures, since most practices probably don’t have staff at the hospital other than the provider.
Arie states, “What we try to do is collect payment at the history of physical. We’ve made agreements with our payers to make refunds within so many days if a patient has overpaid their deductible. It is important to double check the deductible as close to the time of procedure as possible.”
Getting policies to work for you
Whatever policies your practice decides on, there are three additional steps that you should take in order to make them successful. First, make sure that your practice’s management team, including practitioners, is knowledgeable about and agrees to the policies. Then, put the policies in writing. This will prevent any he said/she said down the road. And finally make sure that all staff members are familiar with the policies and are educated on how to apply them.
To listen to the full discussion on financial policies and other topics including patient counseling, reminder systems and staff training watch the recorded webinar Lost Revenue Found – Capturing What’s Due.
Sage can help
Software from Sage can help you execute many aspects of financial policy. Whether you’re looking to provide your front office staff with easy access to co-pays and overdue balances, add service charges for past-due co-pays or pulling medical records, flag accounts that are in a collections status, or charge for no-shows Sage practice management software can help.
Find out how these products can work for your practice by:
