Starting a Medical Billing Business > Starting Your Own Medical Billing Business

Asking for a fee increase

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williamportor:
How do you folks go about asking for increases in your fees? This might sound silly, but I've never asked for a fee increase, and want to do this in a professional manner. I know I'm undercharging some of my long term clients and want to bring my fees in line with my services. Any suggestions would be welcome.   

Michele:
We did this several years back.  If you have a good relationship established with your accounts it is not too bad.  We just explained that we provide them with a quality service and that we were not charging enough to cover the cost of providing that service.  We told them that we are diligent in doing all of the work that many billers and billing services push aside and that we make sure they collect everything that they are entitled to.  We have quite a few accounts that we don't do the patient billing portion and on them we explained that the increasing copays and patient responsibilities was a part as well.  That was many years back when we were charging a % to many clients.  Now we have mostly flat fee clients and for them we just say that we've analyzed the account and taken a look at many things, amount of time spent on the account, volume of patients they see, types of services billed (some require more work), types of insurance billed, if provider is in network or out, etc and that we need to raise their fee effective May 1st (or whatever).  We try to give them at least 30 days, usually more, and then have them sign a new contract.

PMRNC:
I have done this a few times. Make sure you follow your contract and give appropriate notice. My contract states that I will give 60 days notice for certain things including a change in rates. Some contracts may be worded that you can do it upon renewal of the contract or with no notice (not reccomended).

I don't go into too much detail if I increase rates. Quite simply your utility companies and other service based business don't explain rate increases in detail. Keep it simple.

Dear Client,

Due to increase of costs our rate will increase to ____   effective 4/1/2018. We look forward to continuing to serve you with the continued quality of care we have provided.

The more you explain, the more argumentative and defensive you sound. It's common in any business to increase rates as needed. I re-evaluate my fees approximately every two years. I too charge a flat fee and my flat fee is costs + time (hourly). Remember if you were punching a clock at a job you would expect to be given a raise from time to time and appropriately.

williamportor:
Thank You everyone. Good ideas.  :)

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