Waiting for outstanding payments to come in to your office is more than a hassle.
After all, cash flow is king.
And running a medical practice is no different than running any other type of business when it comes to getting paid for services rendered in a timely manner so you can meet payroll and other financial obligations.
By relying on in-house staff who may or may not be very successful in collecting even a portion of what’s owed to your practice what has been your only alternative? Writing off your uncollected accounts receivable for the tax break?
Well, here are solid financial reasons for getting professional help.
Reasons for using a medical collections agency
Whether or not your patients have insurance they are ultimately responsible for making sure you get paid for medical services received.
For example, today a lot of business provide heath insurance plans that have a high deductible. And even the best health plans available often require people to pay 10% (or more) of the total cost for the health care they receive.
The days of $10 or $20 co-pays are just about gone for good.
And that means an increased risk of not getting fully paid for the services your office (or hospital) provides as people are increasingly responsible for their own healthcare.
So why consider getting help with your medical collections?
For starters, a small practice can get overwhelmed handling re-billing and keeping track of outstanding payments. Even the best billing software in the world can tell you WHO is past due on their payments, but that doesn’t help you to actually get paid.
And re-invoicing can only get you so far.
After all, someone has to make contact with the people who owe your practice money. Your staff may not have the training or experience to be very successful at helping you recover lost revenue. What’s more, there are legal liability issues when it comes to HOW you contact people regarding past-due payments.
This is reason enough to get professional help.
A medical collection company worth hiring is going to do all the work for your office. They will be responsible to track down patients, send out billing information to them and contact them by phone.
The key is to find a virtual billing “partner” who can seamlessly integrate their efforts with your office, insurance companies, and the patients who are past due. When selecting a medical collection agency make sure they specialize in working with medical practices, as opposed to hiring a company with little or no experience in medical collections.
That’s because experience is necessary when working with insurance companies.
The medical collection agency you use will contact the insurance companies to collect payment on patient accounts as needed.
They will work with the insurance company to find out whether or not their portion of the payment has been made, and if not set up a schedule for you to collect. This will keep insurance companies up to date when it comes to distributing their portion of the payment that you should receive with respect to outstanding patient bills.
Finally, by working with an ethical agency you don’t have to worry about possibly losing patients because they started getting collection calls.
An experienced agency doesn’t harass or hassle people in order to get them to pay their bills.
Rather, a professional collection agency will simply communicate to the patient the amount that is outstanding and gauge their ability to pay. They can structure payment plans that fit your patient’s needs and that ultimately work out for both parties involved (your office and the people who owe you money).
At the end of the day collecting “something” is better than collecting “nothing.”
By working with an experienced agency, and getting them involved early on in the process, you have a greater chance of collecting most, if not all, of the funds that are owed to your office or practice. This will relieve the administrative headaches of handing this in-house, and will speed up the flow of cash that is owed to you.
Find a medical debt specialist today
To find a medical collections agency that specializes in medical practices like yours simply request more information from qualified and reputable companies.
Click the link and compare free medical collection agency quotes today.
This way you can save time, money and aggravation by hiring a professional who can help you start collecting on your outstanding bills.
After all, you really have two choices:
- you can keep doing what you’re doing (expecting a different result), or
- you can hire an outside company that can help you collect the money you rightfully deserve.
At the end of the day it’s your money…