NMMMA April 2014 Educational Session – Improving Self Pay Collections

Mark Craig, Legal Recovery Resource

by Richard Stokes

This month we’re going to hear from Mark Craig, Vice President of Legal Recovery Resource; a law firm that specializes in healthcare receivables and currently represents over 400 medical providers across Georgia.  As the title suggests, Mark will be talking to us about how practices can improve their ‘self-pay’ collections.

This is a significant topic today because reimbursements are declining and more importantly in the context of this presentation, we’re seeing a steady increase in the ‘self-pay’ patient.  What this refers to is that patients today have insurance plans that require them to pay more out of their own pocket before their plan actually kicks-in.

As a result this is changing the dynamic of today’s practices because collecting directly from patients is a different process than the traditional model of collecting a co-pay and then filing with the insurance carrier.

Some of the key things that you’ll learn from Mark’s presentation will be:

  • New processes for the front staff so that they can help increase recoveries.

  • Ideas and examples on best practice ‘call-scripts’ that will help you in the collections process.

  • How to reduce complaints in the collections process and preserve the image of the practice.

  • How to motivate your staff to engage the patients and make the collections calls.

After his presentation, some of the items that he would hope you would take action on would be:

  • Assess what your practice is currently doing and how effective you actually are at collecting on the self-pay patients.

  • Put a plan in place on how to better work the accounts internally before you decide to outsource to an agency.

Speaking of ‘self-payers’, if you’re a ‘self-learner’ and want to do your own research (because I know you have loads of free time on your hands…), Mark says that the Association of Credit and Collections Professionals is a very informative website that has a lot of best practices that you can read-up on:

So, even though you’re in a business that has a purpose to make and keep people healthy, it’s still a business and you have to bring money through the door.  Mark is going to have a lot of great information for the group so, please invite peers and colleagues to attend and if you haven’t yet registered, what are you waiting for?  North Metro Medical Managers Association.

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