Payments > Patient Billing

discounts for hardship patients

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Sophrosyne:
So from what I've read in various responses on this site, if you offer a patient a discount, the insurance company must be offered the discount as well. Is this true in hardship cases?
If we can offer a discount to the patient in a case of hardship, what kind of documentation do we need? Is the patient's word enough or do we need to ask for any kind of financial documents?
Thanks!

NuBiker:
What we do is let them run up their bill. And we tell them when they receive the statement in the mail from us, ignore it. It does not happen often, but I do not see any way around it - we have to treat all patients equally (on paper).

DMK:
Your provider's policies and procedures should already be established on this matter.  It is completely legal to set up financial hardship cases, but it needs to be set up from the initial visit.

Be really careful when they are an insurance patient.  There are more rules to these cases, since they have a contract with you and the patient.  They agreed to pay and you agreed to collect deductibles and copays, hardship or not, so document well!

Michele:
It is up to the provider if he/she wants financial documents as proof.  The big thing is to document.  If the patient is lying, the provider can't help it.  As long as they've documented what the patient has told them and they believe it to be the truth, they are covered.  If the patient is lying, it's on them.

Sophrosyne:
Ok, so let's say we have the patient documented as a hardship case and we bill her insurance. Since it is hardship, are we allowed to discount what her insurance EOB lists as patient responsibilty?

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