Practice Management Alert

Make sure all your staff know how to ask for money and use equipment

If your medical office isn't conducting ongoing training sessions for your collections staff, you-re running the risk of alienating employees who feel inadequately prepared to perform their jobs.

Another drawback: Patients may be put off by collections staff that does not seem professional and prepared when performing their duties.

-Your entire practice, from doctors on down, can look incompetent if just one employee doesn't know all the office rules and regulations,- says Mark Pattison, PCS, CMC, manager at Health Care Consulting Services Inc. in Cleveland.
 
Example: Dr. Y's office just got a card-swiping machine that allows patients to pay with debit cards. The doctor has posted signs in the waiting room that state, -We now accept debit cards.- He has not, however, trained staff on how to use the machine.

When Patient X tries to pay with a debit card, Biller Z has no idea how to run the card through the machine. Now Biller Z has a patient in the window trying to pay and no working knowledge of the card-swiping machine. Biller Z leaves the patient in the window and goes to find someone in the office who knows how to use the machine. Fifteen minutes later, Biller Z finally processes Patient X's payment. Needless to say, this scenario might shake Patient X's faith in the practice. You can avoid situations of this sort with ongoing collections training, experts say. Give Collectors Special Policy Guidance While consistent training is important for all medical office staff, people working in collections may need even more intensive instruction--and not just when you get a new debit-card machine.

Why? -Collectors need certain qualities to do the job. Often, people are not trained on how to go after money. You can't just put someone at the window and start him collecting money,- Pattison says.

Though this is not a complete list, ongoing education for anyone who asks for money should at least include:

- testing on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).
- testing on policies and procedures contained in state healthcare laws.
- employee policy and confidentiality training.
- basic and advanced collector training.
- skip-tracing training (tracking down hard-to-find delinquent patients  for payment.)
- live collections telephone call training.
- computer training for the practice's particular system.