Hospital bad debt is one of the major reasons for hospital closings
all over the United States. As more Americans with little or no
health coverage use emergency room facilities for the treatment of
illnesses, hospital administrators are finding it very difficult to
recover the costs for these treatments.

Doctor’s offices are also seeing a decrease in patients with health
insurance, as these illnesses are going untreated until they get
far more serious. This results in much higher medical costs, since
many of these illnesses are minor and preventable if treated
earlier.

With a growing economic recession, many of these patients either
have no health coverage, are under-insured and/or they’ve recently
lost their jobs. Because of these, fewer patients are able to
afford the costs for hospital treatment.

Patients dont tend to think about the high cost of the equipment
involved in their treatment, nor do they consider how the facility
will pay the wages for all the staff who participated in their
hospital stay.

With a lack of adequate debt collection strategies in place, many
hospitals are delaying purchasing much-needed diagnostic equipment.
Other hospitals are laying off personnel, while still others will
probably have to close their doors unless they find ways to recoup
hospital bad debt.

Listed below are 4 tips for decreasing or recovering hospital bad
debt:

1. Making Payment Arrangements

Many patients tend to fear larger debts, as the amounts involved
seem insurmountable. By setting up an internal payment plan with
patients and encouraging them to make smaller, regular repayments
against their medical debts, hospitals are able to at least recover
some of the debt owed to them.

2. Clear Payment Policies

As part of your internal collections procedures, patients should be
aware of your payment policies. As long as regular payments are
received on time, there isn’t a problem. Once patients become
delinquent in their payments, you need to state clearly that full
payment will become due. If delinquencies continue, patients need
to know that they will be forwarded to third party collection
agencies to recover the bad debt.

3. Financial Counseling

Financial counseling offered to patients can improve the rate of
repayment to the hospital, and reduce the overall amount of bad
debt that would likely have been written off. Financial counseling
can help patients with budgeting issues, and possibly even help
them find ways to continue with their payment plans.

4. Collection Agencies

For any accounts that are delinquent and the patient is making no
attempt to forward partial payments, consider hiring debt
collection agencies to pursue any outstanding accounts.

Collection agencies are professionals who are experts in helping
recover the past due debts of hospitals, doctor’s offices and
medical clinics.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 7:21 am and
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