Co-Pay Collection Best Practices

TransforMED published an article on co-pay collection best practices. Some key points from the article are as follows below:

• Establish Co-Pay Collection Policies and Procedures

• The article suggests that the best time to collect co-pays is when the patient is in your office.
• Once the patient leaves the office it is more difficult (and expensive) to collect their payment
• Develop a policy that states that co-pays will be required before the patient's appointment

• Who Collects?

• Determine an individual who is responsible for collecting the co-payments - usually this is the front office staff at the reception desk.
• Ensure that your collection process is monitored

• A Team Effort

• Make sure to confirm the patients insurance and co-payments when they schedule their appointment.
• The patient should also be reminded that they will need to bring their insurance card as well as their co-pay when they come for their visit.
  
• "How will you be paying today?" Some ideas for collecting co-payments are below:
• Use a credit/debit card machine (although this will come with a cost of usually 2-3% for the transaction cost and around $.25 per transaction)
• Install ATMs in the lobby

• Train and Reward Your Staff

• Use lines such as: "How will you be paying for your services today, cash, check or credit?" by saying this you are giving them more than one option to pay.
• If the patient knows they need to make the co-payment ahead of time, they should not be shocked when you ask for the payment.

• Communicate with Patients: if this is a new policy for you, you need to be sure to communicate with the patient about this. The following are a few of the ways introduced in the article:

• Place signs in your office
• Mail out letters introducing the new policy to your patients
• Have the patients sign a form at check-in with an overview of your new policies and procedures on collecting co-payments.

For the full article, please click the following link: Co-Pay Collection Best Practices

For additional billing and coding resources, please click here: Medical Reimbursement Coding and Billing Resources.