My newest attempt at getting ahead of the patient's billing is to make an Excel spreadsheet of all of our charges and the allowables for each insurer. So far I have the major payers all lined up.
Before the patient comes in, I log in to the insurance website, see if they've met their deductible and if they haven't, I collect the whole thing at the time of service. If they don't like it or want to complain, I offer them another appointment on a day when they'll be able to pay their portion or cancel them altogether if they say they can't afford it. Then comes the explanation that they'd still owe it whether they pay up front or after, and since I'd rather not chase them...
It seems like more work, but it should save money on the back end with mailing out statement after statement and attorney fees.
Of course, this method really only works effectively for patients with a single commercial insurer or Medicare with no secondary. But I'm interested to see how efficient it will be.
