Patient Direct Payment

In evaluating the medical practice management strategies, need to take into consideration the difficulties may be facing in collecting money from the private-pay patients. With out of pocket costs increasing and higher unemployment, people still need care – and to succeed, need to be able to manage their need for care versus the need to make a living. Educate the patients about what they will be responsible for up front. Don’t let the patients be surprised by a bill in the mail have the staff let them know before they see what their insurance will and won’t pay and what they are going to owe. Then give them an opportunity to pay or set up a payment plan immediately. Set up payment plans so the patients can manage their health care costs as a regular part of their budgets. Working with patients can increase the amount thee paid as patients realize there doing the best for them. If have someone who chronically misses payments or doesn’t pay, consider requiring that patient to pay the practice up front before receiving treatment. Once set up a payment plan between the patient and the practice, give the patient a coupon book rather than sending statements. This will decrease the operating costs and provide the patient with a physical reminder of their debt. Collect fees up front as much as possibly can, including known co-pays and fees for elective visits. Create a Web site that has a shopping cart feature that patients can use to pay the practice online. Consider instituting an online debiting system using patient’s credit cards or bank accounts. Set up a subscription plan with patients that allow them to pre-pay for services. Guarantee a discounted price on select services for patients who join the plan. Accept cash only from patients who have bounced a check with the practice or included their debt to the practice in a bankruptcy. Most physicians don’t like having to think about the possibility that they won’t be able to treat any patients just because they lack the means to pay. But need to have good medical practice management strategies around payment to keep the practice in business. With potentially shrinking reimbursements from the government and private insurers, the practice may become increasingly dependent on private pay dollars. Work with the patients and educate them up front, collecting that money won’t be such a difficult accomplishment. Some physicians have had such an easy time managing private-pay patients that they’ve gone to a cash-only model and shut out private and public insurers alike. This management practice certainly cuts overhead costs while giving the doctor more autonomy in treating patients. Choose to manage the private pay patients, need to institute good medical practice management strategies now to avoid losses and frustrations later.

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House Calls

A house call, or Physician house call, is an act of customer service where the doctors goes to the consumers home, rather than the consumer visiting the suppliers place of business. House calls are most often associated with doctor house calls. There are still doctors making house calls. The physician-led multidisciplinary team provides comprehensive, patient-centered care for any condition, from the simple problems to the very complex, in the patient’s own environment. Thanks to modern technology and our sophisticated, multi-faceted delivery system, we can do more tests and procedures in our patient’s home or place of business than other primary care physicians do in their office. House call doctors are equipped to perform most procedures normally performed in a medical office. House call doctors utilize electronic medical records and will coordinate home health and hospice services, mobile imaging services, durable medical equipment services, laboratory services, and specialist referral services. House call doctors acts as the primary care physician or as augmentation to or as an interim physician to the patients’ present medial team. Doctor’s House calls provide post hospital stabilization service to physicians, insurance plans, and hospitals to mitigate hospital re-admissions.