Practice Management Alert

Patients who don't respond to your early collection efforts may be lying low because they fear their physician care will suffer if they confess to having payment problems.
 
"You'd be amazed at how many people have that concern," says Adrienne Rabinowitz, CPC, billing manager at Western Monmouth Ortho- pedic Associates in Freehold, N.J.

If you're making collection calls, reassure patients that what happens in the billing office does not affect the quality of care that your practice will offer them. Frequently, this is "all the patient needs to know, and then they give a sigh of relief and arrange to pay," she says.

Make sure to tell a concerned patient that the doctor doesn't need to know anything about the status of his bill as long as he arranges a payment plan. This information will put the patient's mind at ease, yet also make him realize that he must make payment arrangements, she says.