Healthcare finance fundamentals and applications

Healthcare Finance

What are the dynamics of patient accounts receivable? What are some of the factors affecting patients accounts receivable?

Facing the challenge of how to address the hospital's unpaid accounts receivable can be one of the most emotionally draining issues for a patient accounts receivable department. In addition to people simply reigining on their payments, the department must face patients who cannot pay, who did not understand that their insurance would not cover a procedure, or patients who simply refuse to pay because they fault the hosptial for inapprorpriate care.

Such a combination of patient's financial, insurance, legal, and emotional complaints often drives some hospitals to explore the option of moving their accounts receivable from a primary collecting agency within the hosptial to a secondary agency. But once a hosptial has written an accounts recievable off to bad debt and sends it somewhere else, it can be very cumbersome transferring all that data from one agency to another. Also, when a hospital sells its bad debt to more experienecd bill collecting agencies, the tactics of such agencies can make it difficult for health care providers to maintain a positive image in the community. "Our number one concern was that once we sold the accounts, we would lose all control," said the director of one accounts recievable department that was considering pursuing such an option. "We didn't want a bunch of bad public relations in the community,." (HFM, 2004)