Practice Management Alert

If you settle for one set payment plan with a patient, you may be shortchanging your practice.

For valid instances of financial hardship, you need to be professional enough to understand that immediate payment is simply not an option. And extending the courtesy to work through the situation and continue the discussion in the future is often the best way to ensure payment down the road. You should always put the responsibility on the patient to call you back after an agreed upon time frame (for example, 60 days).
 
But you should never establish a set payment plan when the patient is temporarily unemployed, says James Christensen, MCE, president of J C Christensen & Associates in Sauk Rapids, Minn. If you agree to $50 a month for the next 12 months and then two months later the consumer is working again and capable of a higher payment, you've forfeited the opportunity to renegotiate, he says.

Better way: Arrange a payment plan for two months at a time, with the understanding that you will re-evaluate every 60 days.