Are your patients not paying their medical bills? With these tips, you as a medical billing services can ensure that you receive your money and have less hassle with bills and reminders. The doctor-patient relationship is based on a treatment contract . And on trust. Both can be affected if a patient uses medical services but does not pay the bill due.

The invoicing and dunning process can be complex, lengthy and expensive: First, the doctor's practice has to create a correct invoice in accordance with GOÄ, then payment deadlines and receipt of payment have to be checked, then there are payment reminders and reminders with reminder costs and interest, and at the end there is a reminder notice Attorney. Now it's getting really expensive.

Tip

We explain the entire dunning process in the practical information “Payment reminders – reminders – judicial dunning procedures” . Further information is also available under Writing reminders for unpaid medical bills . Doctors’ practices often capitulate in the dunning process. Because it is (supposedly) not worth it, the outstanding amounts are finally debited from the accounting department . We have put together a few tips for you that you can use to reduce the risk of payment defaults:

Immediate payment for planned bills (self-payers and IGeL)

Set up an instant checkout . It is not unethical or reprehensible to charge a fee for medical billing Newark. This is also the case if it is carried out immediately. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with immediately creating an invoice for the treatment that has just taken place and also acknowledging it against payment. Especially if the patients with planned self-pay or IGeL services are prepared for the treatment not to be covered by the statutory health insurance company (in the benefit-in-kind principle). An exception is of course emergencies.

Discuss the procedure within the practice team and implement a process. This should begin with informing the patient about the procedure (preferably in writing). Every step, from the timely preparation of the invoice to the completion of the accounting process, is defined and is clear to the employees responsible for it.

• When making an appointment (e.g. for an IGeL service), point out that the patient must pay the bill in the practice on the same day
• Prepare the invoice for the appointment, hand it over at the end of the appointment (here's how to create invoices correctly )
• Pay immediately, either in cash or cashless
• Issue a receipt for payment

This approach relieves the practice administration enormously. You or your MFA do not have to check incoming payments, make phone calls, write reminders or calculate interest. You save on postage and problems with mailing.

You can incorporate the information about the instant checkout into the documents that patients receive from you as standard in paper form, e.g. b.

• Appointment slip
• Information sheet for preparing the appointment
• Information sheet
• Treatment contract

To the Virchow Bund treatment contracts for statutory health insurance patients or private patients . A sentence like “Please remember that the bill for the service must be paid directly in the practice on the day of treatment” is friendly and legitimate.

Private patients: create interim invoices

The basic rule is: those with private insurance pay the bill themselves. As a doctor, you do not have to wait until the patient has received reimbursement from their private insurance (PKV).

If the treatment event was planned (e.g. a follow-up or regular contact for check-ups, prescription issuance, preventive services) and the next appointment can only be scheduled several weeks later or no follow-up appointment is necessary, this can be done as described above for self-pay or IGeL services to proceed.

If it is a new reason for treatment , something different is often recommended for economic reasons:

• If the patient comes to you after a hospital stay and then undergoes follow-up treatment for a while
• If you operate and provide follow-up care yourself
• If, due to the situation, further diagnostics must first be carried out, which extends to several appointments, including external ones

you can create interim invoices . Look for suitable times in the treatment and announce this in a friendly manner to avoid surprises. For long-term treatments, you should also submit regular interim invoices . This has the advantage for patients that the amount they pay in advance does not increase as much.

Outsource payment management

If you generally want to free yourself from the hassle of invoices and payments, you can also delegate this area to external service providers. (Almost) everything is possible here, from invoicing to debt collection or debt sales - depending on how extensive the services are purchased. Such a service provider is e.g. B. our cooperation partner privadis .

If you want to reduce payment defaults without a service provider, there is no way around a structured process. Start with new patients who are not yet used to receiving the invoice from you later by post. After a short time, routine will set in and the anger over unpaid bills will significantly decrease.