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Practice Management Alert

Reader Question:

Making a Claim When Patient Files Bankruptcy

Published on Fri Mar 01, 2002

Question: If a patient has filed bankruptcy, should I make a claim for a bill from a year ago?

Georgia Subscriber  
Answer: The only way to collect from a patient who has filed bankruptcy is to have your attorney include your practice in the formal bankruptcy proceeding as a creditor. Even if you are included as a creditor, youre likely to receive only pennies on the dollar in payment. Unless the claim is for an expensive surgical procedure and amounts to thousands of dollars, few practices find the bankruptcy settlement worth their time and effort. Youre usually better off writing off the claim as bad debt.
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