Wiki Collecting the 20% up front

[bill2doc]

Is anyone collecting the patients 20% up front for Medicare or commercial plans? Our provider wants to begin to collect the patients portion up front, at the time of visit, to avoid having to bill the patient. This sounds like a front office and accounting nightmare but maybe you all are doing this and it flows just fine.

Any feedback ?

Thanks
Lynn

 

[honeybee]

I work at PT clinic and we usually collect at the time of service but I can tell you that yes it can cause issues with both over and under collections but the reason we do it is because of the frequency of the patients treatment and the balance can build very quickly if we dont collect. Its definitley a headache though and we sometimes have insurance co calling us telling us not to collect etc but since its not in our contact that we can't collect we have no obligation really follow what the rep says. Usually we are ok and we try to keep tabs on the patients credit and what they are paying when we post insurance payments and then we can always modify the amounts too.