Collecting Deductibles from Patients

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Collecting Deductibles from
Patients
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Collecting Deductibles from Patients
As a healthcare provider, your prime focus is
supporting your patients and meeting their
healthcare needs. But while quality patient care
is essential, you cant run your practice without
having sound administrative systems in place to
keep the office operating efficiently.One of the
most tedious tasks is collecting patient
payments. As lots of insurers are buying High
Deductibles Health Plans (HDHP), collecting
unpaid deductibles becomes a prime task for any
practice owner. In this article, we shared basic
tips on collecting deductibles from patients.
These tips would be helpful to you immediately as
a new year is about to start and deductibles get
rest from 1st Jan every year. Understanding
Deductibles A deductible is what patients pay
before the insurance company starts contributing
to medical bills. Insurance deductibles can be
anywhere from 0 to 10,000. For example, with a
2,000 deductible, insurers have to pay the first
2,000 of covered services. Generally,
deductibles are updated if a patient renews their
health plan or signs up for a new one through an
employer. Typically a deductible year begins on
January 1 and ends on December 31 and gets reset
every January 1. Some people who have low
deductibles meet their deductible threshold
quicker than those who have high deductibles.
Generally, plans with lower monthly premiums have
higher deductibles. Collecting Deductibles from
Patients Collecting Deductibles at
Point-of-Care The only way to collect unpaid
deductibles is by collecting them at the point of
care. Most practices generally submit the claim
and reassign the patient portion when they
receive payment feedback from the insurance
carrier.
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Collecting Deductibles from Patients
Eligibility and benefits verification serves as a
baseline for collecting deductibles at the point
of care. Its well-known fact that collecting
patient payments once they leave the office is
really challenging. You have to start sending
patient statements and need to take continuous
follow-ups for patients to make payments. It s a
costly option as such follow-ups consume a lot of
your teams crucial time. Eligibility and
Benefits Verification Through eligibility and
benefits verification activities, ensure that you
have insurance coverage reports for the next two
days appointments. Patients deductibles vary as
per insurance carriers and their individual
health plans. Once you have the insurance
coverage report, your front desk team can inform
the patient about their unpaid deductibles prior
to the visit. A well-informed/educated patient is
in the right mindset and ready to make payments
at the time of visit only. Assigning
Responsibility to Staff Assign responsibility to
specific staff member/s to collect all patient
payments (including unpaid deductibles) at the
time of service. This team member will be
responsible for communicating with patients prior
to their visit about patient responsibilities. By
assigning the responsibility to specific staff in
the office, there wont be any questions about
who will manage the initial collection and
payment follow-through when needed.
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Collecting Deductibles from Patients

• Train Staff
• Along with patient education, training staff on
  handling patient or patient communication is
  equally important. Collecting deductibles from
  patients should not deteriorate the overall
  patient experience. You can improve the patient
  experience by offering simple digital payment
  platforms and user-friendly forms to minimize
  potential frustration. Your staff should be
  trained on collecting deductibles in the right
  way. Rather than asking questions to patients
  like Are you able to pay today? ask open-ended
  questions like I see your patient balance is
  150, would you like to pay with cash or a credit
  card?
• Offer Payment Options
• Providing various ways for patients to take care
  of their unpaid deductibles will increase the
  likelihood that theyll make the payment at the
  time of the visit only. A concerned staff member
  can begin their conversation by telling the
  patient about the total balance and bifurcation.
  Then, he can suggest available payment options
  and payment plans as per office policies. You can
  set up recurring payments on a credit card if
  someone cant pay the total amount immediately or
  refer the patient to financing options. Make sure
  that everyone is on the same page about unpaid
  deductibles. As mentioned earlier, be upfront
  about the service costs before the appointment so
  each patient knows about their financial
  responsibility.

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Collecting Deductibles from Patients
When you have the right processes for collecting
deductibles from patients, you reduce the stress
of cash flow management and other financial
concerns. Legion Healthcare Solutions which is a
leading medical billing company can assist you in
collecting deductibles from patients. Along with
our complete medical billing and coding services,
we provide eligibility and benefits services
which will help you to estimate exact patient
responsibility prior to patient visits. Contact
us at 727-475-1834 or email us at
info_at_legionhealthcaresolutions.com to know more
about our billing and coding services.
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