Okay, I know this isn't about AC, but I'm sure it's an issue that each of his deals with our respective practices.
I find it really frustrating that patients who owe us money and are eventually set to collections, just up and move to another practice only to start doing this all over again. Most of these folks are those with Medicare or other insurances that require them to pay a deductible at the beginning of the year. Some of them are folks with Medicare, who don't have a supplement, and therefore are responsible for their 20%, or if they are folks who signed in ABN, and still don't want to pay the cost of service.
I'm sitting here this morning looking at a release of information on just one of these folks. She's now moving to another practice, after yelling at me last week that we should not have sent her account to collections. Mind you, she's had ample opportunity (all of 2007 thus far) to work out something with us, as well as with the collection agency. Her behavior is such that she does not call us back unless she needs medication refills.
Practice is difficult enough for all of us, but it seems unfair to the next practice to be unaware of this person's financial practices. Do you notify them? Do you make a notation in your charts that shows patients are set to collections? (Right now, we have that info in the yellow box on the demographics page.) Is that even our place to let them know that they are potentially taking on someone who will never pay their bill? Is this information you'd like to know about your new patients?
Well, this information may not stop me from accepting a patient, it certainly helped me formulate some of my financial policies. For example, one person did transfer to me, and even wrote on her reason for transfer that the previous office had sent collections. We agreed to work with her, with the understanding she would always have her co-pays up front. So far, so good.
So, what do you do?
(edit: spelling corrections - I had used DNS for this post)
Last edited by rainy; 10/29/2007 8:53 PM.
