Patient Collections

How You Can Fix It

So at Pediatric Executive Development System, we are often asked questions that pique our curiosity. So recently, a physician manager asked us, what do you do with patients with outstanding balances older than 90 days?

Here is how we think about that. There is a culture, a who, and a process problem when you have patients that owe you money. The solution is not to treat the symptom but to prevent the disease.

The Managing Partner would have known that there was a problem if she had access to a monthly updated scoreboard with one score—the net receivable ratio.

You calculate that ratio: Collections /(All Posted Charges - insurance write-offs). The benchmark there is better than 95%.

What leads to this outcome? The right person schedules and does financial credentialing 100% of the time before the patient is in the office, including allowing patients to sign up for autopay. One person can schedule and financially credential 75 patients daily; these two steps will eliminate your problems with unpaid patient collections.