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Practice Management Alert

READER QUESTIONS:

Check Your Contracts for Collections Advice

Published on Mon Jan 18, 2010

Question: We wanted to collect a $100 deposit for a self-pay patient prior to surgery, but another biller told me we'd be breaking the law if we collected any money up front. Is that true or can we collect a deposit? New York Subscriber Answer: It depends. Whether you can collect a deposit from the patient before performing a surgery is a function of your payer contract that your physician has signed. If the contract does not exclude collecting copays and deductibles up front, you are perfectly legal in collecting the patient portion of the surgery before providing the service. Exception: If your physician signed a contract that forbids this type of up-front collection, you would be violating the contract by collecting a pre-surgery deposit Lesson learned: This is why it is so important to read your contracts before signing them and why it is so important to have a [...]
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