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Practice Management Alert

Financial Policy Statements Grease Collection Wheels

Published on Tue Oct 01, 2002

What your patients don't know can hurt your accounts receivable. The more you tell patients about billing from the start, the better your collections will be.

By giving patients a financial policy that describes your billing protocol, you prepare them for a proper relationship with your office. The policy tells patients that as customers, they bear a financial responsibility for the care they receive.

The following expert advice offers key pointers for designing an effective financial policy. But there's no cookbook solution for finding the financial policy that works best for the patients you serve. You must tailor these general pointers to communicate with the type of patients that frequent your office.

What Policies Should State

"Be very direct and specific" about your collections policy, says Lori Foley, CMA, CMM, a senior consultant in Atlanta with Gates Moore and Co. She suggests that you do the following when you create a financial policy:

  • Begin your policy by stating responsibilities, starting with yours. The policy should immediately elaborate on your practice's obligations: "to provide quality care and assist them with getting their insurance company to pay their bills appropriately," she says.
  • Then add the patient's responsibilities. After you have highlighted your practice's responsibilities, you should explain that the practice must collect copayments according to the patient's plan, Foley says. You should forewarn patients that they might be responsible for a deductible and coinsurance. You should also inform patients that insurance claims will be filed with the practice's participating payers and, as a courtesy, to nonparticipating payers, Foley adds. She directs offices to alert patients that they may be responsible for payment if the insurance company does not pay the claims.
  • Highlight key information. Practices sometimes choose to bold significant information  the same kind of information a credit-card company may put in fine print. For example, if you assess a fee for delinquent accounts or if you send patients to collections for unpaid bills, don't hide the bad news.
  • Provide patients with copies of your financial policy. It will help patients if you make a copy of your financial policy for them to take home, Foley says. Tell patients to refer to it if they have any questions about their bills.

    How to Present Your Policy

    Ross Rohde, a practice administrator for a 45-physician multispecialty group in Atlanta, recommends limiting the financial policy to one page. It should be written in language understandable to someone with an eighth- to 10th-grade education, and purged of any technical medical terms, Rohde says.

    Another alternative is to insert your financial policy into a more comprehensive practice brochure, says Victoria Jackson, administrator and CEO of Southern Orange County Pediatric Association in Lake Forest, Calif. Jackson's practice includes the financial policy in a brochure that offers other information unrelated to finance, including physician information, appointment scheduling, emergencies, prescription refills and appointment hours.

    The single financial policy other experts propose "makes the practice seem cold," she says. Jackson insists that the more comprehensive package has "absolutely" helped her business. She strongly suggests inserting financial policies into documents that highlight the practice's patient-friendly material.

    New patients at Jackson's practice receive the brochure on their first visit and then sign a form confirming that they understand the material included. That way, Jackson says, if the patient says he was never told about a payment policy, you can pull out the signed statements and prove he knows about his end of the deal.

    To communicate effectively the patient's financial responsibilities, Jackson agrees with Rohde: A "basic, clear and concise" policy gets the job done. But Jackson doesn't offer too many general recommendations for how to present your policies. She advises, instead, that practices tailor their manuals for the type of patient population they serve. In some geographic locations, simplified practice statements might better communicate complex policies to the relevant patient group. But Jackson admits that an overly simplified practice letter would deter her from becoming a patient in a practice.

    So, how should you write your financial policy? Jackson answers with this handy advice: Design policies to the specifics of your practice, including practice atmosphere and patient personality. Determine how the policy reflects on you and how it communicates with patients who pay your bills.

    With that advice in mind, only you can choose whether financial policies or manuals will best ensure that patients understand their financial responsibilities. In either case, communicating to patients their role in payments will facilitate billing and improve patient relations. Patients will understand that a healthy relationship with their practice requires them to give as well as take.

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