Medical Billing Collections

Today's healthcare providers depend on medical billing collections to keep practices profitable and patient-friendly. Long gone are the days when doctors rode horse and buggies over the countryside to treat small town families for a hen and a gallon of fresh milk. Healthcare is big business and physicians need to watch the bottom line if they want to stay afloat in a sluggish economy. Faced with the high cost of medical malpractice insurance, expensive pharmaceuticals, qualified clinical and administrative personnel, office leases, and lagging medical insurance claims, twenty-first century docs need professional help to collect payment for services rendered.

An economy weakened by housing market woes and high interest rates has far-reaching effects on the consumer and the goods and services they buy, including healthcare. As employed and unemployed alike experience increasing difficulty obtaining and affording health insurance, hospitals, clinicians, and private practitioners are also feeling the pinch. People still get sick, but are increasingly unable to meet the cost of hospitalization, prescription drugs, chronic illness, and quality preventive health care. Government-subsidized funding programs like Medicare and Medicaid have proven inadequate to offset the expense most practitioners incur simply trying to stay in the business of keeping people alive and well. When patients default on payments, doctors and healthcare providers have to take drastic measures to collect.

Medical collection agencies specialize in recovering outstanding balances from uncollectible and slow-paying accounts, along with health insurance companies who may prolong compensating physicians due to paperwork backlogs. Whatever the reason for past due payments, a qualified medical billing collections agency renders physicians and healthcare practitioners invaluable service. One key advantage is that providers no longer have to risk losing good patient relations because of poor or aggressive collection practices. When it comes to healthcare, patients like to view the family doctor as a benevolent friend, not a brow-beating bill collector. In the past, doctors relied on staff to collect payment at the front desk. But it's not an easy task to look a patient in the eye while demanding a few hundred dollars on an account that is 90 days past due. But, medical collection agencies are faceless and impartial third parties qualified to address delicate matters like delinquent accounts without offending long standing patients. Doctors don't have to forfeit good bedside manners or deprive patients of quality healthcare in an effort to extract payment.

Delinquent bills not only negatively impact physicians profit margins, but can have an adverse effect on patient credit reports. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) prohibits medical collection agencies from disclosing information about a patient's treatment. However, loss management companies are well within the law when listing delinquent accounts on credit reports, which can adversely affect a patient's ability to get future financing. Most hospital administrators realize the difficulty patients have affording insurance; and a myriad of plans exist to help underinsured and uninsured patients pay for healthcare. Delinquent accounts can be forgiven, if patients can prove hardship or meet federal poverty guidelines. Forgiveness of debt is a common theme which runs throughout the Bible. "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." (Matthew 6:12). God is willing to continually forgive us, as we are reminded to continually forgive others. Patient account advisors and external medical collections agencies sometimes offer debt reduction solutions to patients to defray or forgive a portion of delinquent accounts and recover at least a percentage of monies owed. Private practitioners, however, may not be able to retain in-house collection personnel; therefore external medical collection agencies provide an affordable option. Some external agencies work on a percentage basis, charging the provider only on funds collected. Medical billing collections firms generally use ethical means and legal options to enforce payment. From writing letters, to making phone calls and exploring legal options, such as lawsuits, medical collection agencies are adept at bringing delinquent accounts current and diminishing write-offs. Healthcare providers are free to focus only on providing quality care without misgivings.

Patients concerned about delinquent accounts should contact healthcare providers well before medical billing collections begin. Hospitals, private practitioners and other healthcare providers can make provisions for indigent and underinsured patients to resolve past due accounts over a period of time. If patients are receiving demands for payment from clinicians, radiologists, surgeons, and therapists and are unable to meet financial obligations, contact with accounts payable representatives should be made as soon as possible. Hospital accountants will assess patients' financial statements to determine if qualifications for assistance from federal and state funding sources can be met. Funds may also be available through indigent care trusts or third party charitable foundations which generously donate funds to cover the cost of providing care for those who cannot afford to pay. Indigent, underinsured and uninsured patients must meet certain income requirements to qualify for assistance or debt reduction.

As healthcare and liability costs continue to rise, physicians and hospitals will continue to be placed in the position of providing expensive care to consumers who have fewer resources to pay for them. The lack of affordable healthcare places low- to middle-income patients at a greater risk of chronic indebtedness due to an inability to meet outstanding healthcare expenses. In the future, medical billing collections may play an even greater role in the life of our nation's healthcare providers striving to stay financially solvent. Patients who can afford to pay for quality healthcare should not defer to pay providers for the invaluable service they render to individuals and to society as a whole.

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