- Start Your New Year With a Bang
Welcome to the New Year. As you know, with the new year comes new deductibles. That being said, it is important to have a meeting with your staff (especially the front staff) to discuss making sure that deductibles are collected efficiently and effectively from day one. By collecting deductibles up front, you will ensure quality cash flow for your office in the month of January and have less chasing to perform when your EOB comes in with a “no-pay applied to deductible.”
I am sure that I am not saying anything new that you don’t already know. However, I believe that repetition is the key to learning and by having meetings to help remind the staff, they can be at the top of their game.
First visit-Your Deductible is DUE at the Time of Service
I wish there was a way whereby in the beginning of the year, every “First Visit” regardless of insurance was collected from the patient. I would love to be able to post a sign in my lobby that says:
”Due to the new year deductibles, at your first visit, we will be collecting $100 from you, please be prepared and have your money ready or you will not be seen today.”
This would reduce most of the calls necessary at the beginning of the year to determine the patient’s deductible and then once the EOB comes in you would be certain to know which patients had a deductible, whose secondary had a deductible, who would even have a credit due back, or a credit that you can apply towards a future visit. Your cash flow would be uninterrupted for the beginning of the year.
Even though I think this method would work, I know there will be issues with regards to collecting the wrong amount for some of the insurances and of course the uproar that you would receive in your office by requiring a standard collection at the first of the year. I do believe that a system such as this would reduce some of the challenges that we face at the very beginning of the year with regards to deductibles.
For Some Reason, the Burden is On Us
Somewhere along the way it became our responsibility to find out and identify a patient’s deductible or percentage of responsibility for the visit. We have hired staff to perform these duties at a cost to our overhead and we receive no payment extra from anyone; be it the patient or the insurance company for the services we perform on behalf of the patient. Most times, the insurance card is not accurate, nor does it give us the information we need to identify what the co-pay is or how much a deductible is due and even the slider cards that link electronically to the insurance carrier system is not always up to date.
My whole point in this short first post of the year is to remind you to please be assertive, and gently aggressive at collecting co-pays and deductibles throughout the very first month of the year.
Start your new year off productively and continue this throughout the whole year, so you have a healthy and prosperous new year.
