Bert,
I do the posting, so if I see anything is owed by the patient, I mail a statement and write it in the yellow note in demographics. (I also will write it in the siblings' charts.) When they come for the next visit, they have to pay the back balance, but we do allow a partial payment. I took a collections class, and they told us to say "how much can you pay" - having them come up with the number themselves. And not say "do you want to pay your balance today?" The answer might be no and that will be the end of the conversation. Usually we just say "you have a balance of $___" and pause. Usually the parent will offer to pay or ask to pay a partial amount. For partial amounts, we will say "when will you pay the rest?" and write it down on the superbill. This way the patient understands that we're serious about collecting the rest of the balance. All this happens before they see the doctor. Our check-in person is very good.
Now most patients who owe do not have a large balance. We check all benefits pretty well and collect deductibles and coinsurance pretty close to the right amount. (This took while at the beginning to get all the contracted fee schedules.) There are some patients that owe that have not come back to see us, but not a large amount. We have not sent them to collections, but if they ever show up again, they will have to pay.
Once every few months I generate a report of balances and resend statements. That's really all we do. But most patients seem to come back here so they end up paying it off. The people who don't come back, I guess we will have to write it off at some point in the future. I think the balance is not big enough to make a collections agency worthwhile.
We do have some people who call to pay when they receive the statement in the mail, but not a lot.
Oh and after we got V6.3.3 (which we're still on - I'm afraid to upgrade!), the ability to link the charts to siblings has been really helpful to collect when mom/dad comes in for another kid.
.png "ACUF Donor I")
