Medical billing collections is increasing in usage, as many physician practices, medical clinics and hospitals face ever-growing past due debts from slow pay patient delinquencies and backed up insurance claims.

With nearly 47 million Americans not having any private health coverage, a sluggish economy caused by a recession, as well as increasing unemployment, spells diminishing positive cash flow for medical practitioners.

Given that prognosis, there are a number of things you can implement to increase your internal medical billing collections. By putting these six tactics into place, you can greatly improve your financial bottom line.

1. Be sure you have a clear payment procedure, placed visibly at the front of your office. New patients need to understand clearly what, if any, payment is expected upfront, in regards to co-pays, etc. This should be understood BEFORE rendering service.

2. Its vitally important that you collect ample and accurate patient information during the first visit to the doctor’s office. Get the patient’s full name, date of birth, address, work, home and cell phone numbers.

Get their work information: address, phone number, their title or position, supervisor/manager, etc.

Obviously, the more information you can collect, the better. While some may be reluctant to give their social security number, its still a good idea, especially if the account has to be turned over to a collection agency later.

3. If the patient has health insurance, its important to verify at this point. While a doctor’s office can get quite hectic, this crucial step shouldn’t be overlooked. Verifying coverage will avoid headaches later on.

4. In the initial patient application, you need to detail clearly the patients’ responsibility to pay. You might also want to consider adding language that in the event the account is turned over to an outside collection agency for lack of payment, the patient will be responsible for collection costs.

Some states allow the business to recoup their costs for hiring an outside collections agency. This has to be clearly stated upfront in the original patient-signed application. (Be sure to consult with your attorney about this, as state laws vary)

5. Allow patients to make payment arrangements for those going through financial difficulties. Because so many are either uninsured or under-insured, making reasonable payment arrangements via installments gives them more options, and greater peace of mind. It will also help generate cash flow to your practice.

6. Know when to turn over delinquent accounts to a debt collection agency. As mentioned earlier, lack of health insurance, rising unemployment and a recession has placed greater financial strains on some patients ability to pay for health care.

Most people intend to do the right thing and honoring their debt obligations. But the reality is that some others are less responsible. By using the before-mentioned procedures, consistently and early on, you can better identify the patients experiencing temporary financial problems from the “problem” delinquent accounts. Payment arrangements, and continued communications can better address those problems.

However, the non-paying, more difficult clients need to be identified earlier as well. These are the accounts that should be outsourced to professional collection agencies, since they are better equipped to work with these types of accounts.

Failing to do so only means wasting valuable time, money and labor dealing with these difficult clients. Time is an important factor, in that the longer your account goes unpaid, the lesser the likelihood of ever getting paid. By turning these over earlier, you greatly increase your chances of at least getting some money.

As a general rule, after 90 days of non-payment, medical billing collections should be turned over to a collection agency.

These procedures are simple, but they’re very important. And they can prove very effective in reducing your medical billing delinquencies. If you put these into consistent practice, you will greatly improve your medical billing collections.

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