Collections Insider

Medical/Dental collection efforts can be extremely difficult for both the practice and its collection agency. Setting up policies and procedures for your practice and educating your patients can make a huge difference in collecting or even eliminating delinquent accounts. Here are some tips from my personal experience having managed several dental practices. These tips have been most effective in positive patient relations.

• PPO- Practice must be sure to inform the patient if they are or are not a PPO=Participating Provider Organization AKA In Network Provider, even if not asked specifically and to make sure the person knows the differences.
• Verify Eligibility – A practice must verify that the patient is eligible for the
  benefits that they’re expecting to receive, and to find out ahead of time about any common exclusions to the plan.
• Verification Form – Create a form that has the basic choices of benefit information on it already. Even note the effective date of the policy, some of the common exclusions, limitations, maximum annual allowance, has any of the maximum been used this year, frequencies for common procedures. This way you can just circle, check off or fill in the blanks for what’s relevant. This should also include the patients Plan, ID#, Toll free # and the mailing address to send the claims to or the information needed for electronic claims. Are there other family members covered? Are there any age specific limitations?
  Always note the name and/or badge# of whom you spoke with. Make sure you’re getting the benefits for a participating or non participating office, whatever the case is for this person.
• Financial Policies- Make sure all the paper work is filled out properly. Does it include the SS#? Some people are hesitant to give their SS#, if this is the case, ask them to put down the last four digits. Did they sign everywhere a signature is required? Make sure your policy includes that you may add billing, collection and or legal fees to any delinquencies. This gives you the freedom to do so if you choose, but doesn’t obligate you to do so.
• Patient Registration Forms should include – Address (if it’s a PO Box, keep it, but require a physical address if there is one), Phone #’s for home, work, cell, spouse’s work & cell. What dept. do they work in, and what position? Supervisor’s name. An emergency contact name & #, as well as a name and # for a family member not living with them. Are there any family members already in the practice? Email addresses are very useful these days. (if they have a business card, request one to keep in their file) Who referred them to your practice?

This is the beginning of great communication between you and your patients, and will only result in positive experiences for all involved.

About the author: Bethellen Keefe is the owner of Alpine-BAK, Inc. collection agency based in Coral Springs, Florida. Visit her online at www.alpinebak.com.

About 3 years ago I was still using the web site created for me by Frontier in Rochester New York. Knowing very little about the creation, development, optimization and value of a web site I figured it was what it was. The site rarely generated any calls and cost the agency $15.00 per month, that of course is in addition to the initial set up cost which I believe was a few hundred dollars.

My “real” marketing efforts consisted of phone book listings, magazine ads, cold calling and letter campaigns, none of which brought the agency any great results (mild at best).

About three years ago I brought John Kelly on board as Vice President of the agency. Kelly’s role was and is IT and marketing. Kelly immediately went to work making adjustments to the agency web site. As he made these changes I assisted by providing him with content and details about the collection industry. Kelly took over hosting of the agency site and I cancelled our contract with Frontier. The site began to take shape and as Kelly continued to develop it and he explained each step to me as he went along.

My understanding of web sites and the necessity of one soared and I felt like I had entered the world of technology. Once the site became active it began to take on a life of its own. The site had become my marketing tool. I began receiving calls on a daily basis and since the site upgrade my client base has quadrupled. My marketing dollars are now solely devoted to the web site and its optimization.

I owe the success of my site to John Kelly. Without his guidance I would still have a worthless site that no one sees or utilizes. The site is now interactive and a great resource to current and potential clients. I offer a blog that clients can read and make comments to and my monthly newsletters are archived on my site. My agreement and placement form is on line and can be downloaded and completed by clients. Debtors can now go to our on line payment page at www.forgot2pay.com and make secured payments.

John Kelly has decided to not only offer his services to Your Collection Solution, LLC but to offer them to businesses all over who need his expertise. He has started his own business called 6X6 Design , LLC. He has already developed and optimized web sites for a number of small businesses including a commercial cleaning company, a social worker and an attorney. He can be reached through his web site (which is under construction at the time of this post) at www.6×6Design.com.

About the author: Jan Conte is the President of Your Collection Solution, LLC, a debt collection agency out of Newtown, Pennsylvania. She has over twenty years experience in the debt collection industry. You can find more of her articles at www.yourcollectionsolution.com/blog/.