Patient Payments Blog

Have you ever noticed how much personal, painful change a superhero must undergo in order to protect someone else’s everyday normality?  They change so everything can stay the same for others. That’s what makes them heroes. Normal folks typically resist change. Heroes embrace it.

There is nothing that screams 1983 louder than that credit card machine on your front counter. It’s a relic of a bygone era. A paperweight taking up room on your counter and making your office seem like Disco is still all the rage.

I wrote about this in my last post but it bears repeating. Many of us (myself included) need a few reminders before we move forward. My recent experience with trying to pay a bill made me even more passionate about making payment simple for your patients. 

The reasons your practice needs to begin taking online payments keep growing. More and more of your patients are accessing bill pay options online. Waiting to make online payments available to them will be seen as a failure to meet their expectations.

There may be some folks that love to collect past due balances; I just haven’t met any of them. So I’m gong to assume that most of us would rather prevent past due balances and forget having to collect them altogether.

Without being rude, a patient needs to be reminded that he or she will most likely owe your practice money. This needs to be clearly stated at the beginning of your relationship. With existing patients, at the beginning point of his or her next treatment.

Not only is this reminder the most important part of your financial policy; it is the most difficult to communicate in a non-confrontational way.

If you could gain an extra hour in your week or day in your month; what would it be worth to you? I’ve often heard the old saying, ‘Once time has been lost, it cannot be regained’. That’s tragic.

My title sounds far fetched, doesn’t it? It’s over-the-top and a bit ‘National Enquirer’.  A little ridiculous to think that a payment plan could save someone’s life. But it actually relates to a true story.

Have you seen the recent stories about Chick-Fil-A? Not the ones that bash them for their stands on hot button issues. But the ones that report they are America’s favorite fast food restaurant? And the ones that talk about how they train their employees? 

I read a lot of advice. I hear even more advice from colleagues, friends, and family. Much of it ends up in the waste bin that I’m sure exists somewhere in the back of my mind. Heaven forbid that anyone go there and start rummaging around! Some of the advice stays in the front of my mind though. Somehow it sticks.

The advice that tends to stick, and work for me, comes from people I admire. And I usually admire people who are pursuing excellence with some success. I think, or at least believe, they have discovered some principles that make their lives, jobs, relationships easier or more effective; so I pay attention.