Practice Management Alert

Avoiding aggressive collections efforts can save patient relations and money. If your provider does not like to send patients to collections, don't give up on collecting. Try setting your past-due patients up on a payment plan. Getting a signed payment agreement or promissory note can help you ensure timely payments from the patient. Keep Payments Flowing, Even If They're Small Preserving good patient relations is important, but so is collecting for services rendered. This may mean working with the patient to arrive at a payment schedule both of you can agree on. Although it may take longer to get your money, a payment plan will help financially struggling patients avoid an outside collector, says Catherine Brink, CMM, CPC, CMSCS, president of Healthcare Resource Management (www.hrminc.com) in Spring Lake, N.J. "At least with offering payment plans, you have some income coming in versus sending them to collections and possibly never getting [...]