Dealing with people who won't pay

[stickyshift]

We have a serious problem with patients who won't pay their lab bills, especially with the higher deductible insurance plans that are more common nowadays. How aggressively do you pursue them? One or two notices before you drop the whole affair? Set up installment payments? Discount the balances?

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[Thrombus]

Unless they are disabled they have no excuse. They can get on a payment plan and or renegotiate. Get a collection agency.

I remember working 100 hours a week and paying to do so. A 40 hour week desk job or welfare job while smoking cigarettes, watching cable tv, surfing the Internet, drinking alcohol and eating junk food typical person is making a choice not to pay.

I don't care for the Florida governor, but to watch some pathetic soul scream at him for not giving her enough handouts while she sits on the Internet at Starbucks is the rule not the exception these days.

 

[yaah]

This is a bigger problem because when patients get care now, they can get many bills sent to them for essentially one patient encounter or admission or whatever. You can get a bill from the hospital, the radiology group, the cardiology group, the lab, etc. Patients often have to figure out how much they really owe, which bills to pay, etc. It isn't as straightforward as it sounds. There will likely be a push over the next for years for a single bill coming out of hospital encounters. This will likely mean that everyone owed money will have to compromise when the whole bill is not paid. Who gets left out? It's kind of a quagmire.

Example: my kid had to get an xray and a CBC for a limp he had. I got bills from the pediatrician, the lab, the hospital (for the xray) and the radiologist for interpreting the image. Because we have a deductible like most people do now that hadn't been met yet.

 

[deleted480308]

We have a serious problem with patients who won't pay their lab bills, especially with the higher deductible insurance plans that are more common nowadays. How aggressively do you pursue them? One or two notices before you drop the whole affair? Set up installment payments? Discount the balances?

(in other fields) most that I know who bill after their services are rendered tend to make 1-2 phone/mail contacts and then either sell outright to debt collection or assign to debt collection for a commission.

 

[deleted314957]

This is a bigger problem because when patients get care now, they can get many bills sent to them for essentially one patient encounter or admission or whatever. You can get a bill from the hospital, the radiology group, the cardiology group, the lab, etc. Patients often have to figure out how much they really owe, which bills to pay, etc. It isn't as straightforward as it sounds. There will likely be a push over the next for years for a single bill coming out of hospital encounters. This will likely mean that everyone owed money will have to compromise when the whole bill is not paid. Who gets left out? It's kind of a quagmire.

Example: my kid had to get an xray and a CBC for a limp he had. I got bills from the pediatrician, the lab, the hospital (for the xray) and the radiologist for interpreting the image. Because we have a deductible like most people do now that hadn't been met yet.

"Who gets left out?" Hmm, let's see. "Who's that fellow down in the lab who's always looking through that funny thing on his desk with the two eye holes?" said the administrator.

 

[jupiterianvibe]

GET UP ON OUTTA HERE WITH MY EYEHOLES!