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BUSINESS ADVISOR
ment and mail it to the patient. If you're not
paid in full in 30 days, you send out a second statement. If you're not paid in full in
another 30 days, you generate a third and
final statement with a note that threatens
to turn the account over to collections if
the patient doesn't clear the balance. See
the trouble with chasing the money? In 90
days, the patient is deep in arrears and
you're in no danger of being paid. All of
this plays out against an adversarial backdrop: Pay up or else.
We used to routinely send all delinquent
accounts (we defined as 90 days after the
third statement) to a collections agent.
Nobody wins when you turn an account
over to collections. Patients sink deeper
into debt and their credit rating takes a hit.
The collection agent tacks on a 33% fee to
transferred accounts, as well as any court
costs. And not only do we lose control of
the account, but we're lucky if we receive
30% of what's owed to us. Now it's rare that
we have to send an account to collections.
OSM
Ms. Colen (mrcolen@sentara.com) is the
administrator of the Virginia Beach (Va.)
Ambulatory Surgery Center.
J U N E 2013 | O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E
MONEY MATTERS
Inside the
Mind of a Patient
H
ere are 5 financial fallacies your patients
might be thinking:
• "The more time that passes,
the less responsible I am
for paying my balance."
• "It's OK to pay down my
$3,000 bill with $10 a
month."
• "I don't have to pay my copay."
• "Once they hear about my
hardship, they'll surely write
off my balance."
• "I know that I have a highdeductible insurance plan,
but I don't really have to
worry about that."
— Martha R. Colen,
RN, MBA, CASC
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