Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Non payment

When a patient refuses to pay his or her deductible or 20% (medicare or commercial) and collection has failed, what do you do?

Can you 1099 them?


Any ideas?

I don't know about medicare, but commercial, theoretically you could go to small claims court. Typically doctors just write these off and dismiss the patient though.

They are bound, by contracts they sign, to pay the co-pays and deductables.
We are bound, by contracts we sign, to collect them.
What is the remedy for failure to comply with terms of contract?
Usually, immediate termination of the contract.

We write off the debt as noncollectable and discharge the patient from our clinic via registered mail.

We discharge them when they go to collections, usually. We attempt to set up payment plans. We attempt to collect all the co-pays at the time of the visit. I often tell them they cannot be seen without a co-pay next time. (We never refuse service, as this might be abandonment, but discharge if they are unwilling to set up an automatic credit card deduction each month for large old balances.)