Clearly the employee with a lot of experience doesn't have enough experience, or the amounts collected would match what is actually owed, lol!
We do not collect co-insurance amounts upfront at my office, nor do any of my billing clients, nor do any doctors I go to. In some cases, it is because the insurance contracts we have with various companies prohibits collecting anything beyond a copay at TOS, and I am not looking to violate our contracts. What do your insurance contracts say about this?
In other cases, it is because it just isn't worth it, unless it is done correctly EVERY single time (which is almost impossible to do, for most offices). Any time you have to refund money, the practice has just LOST money, because of the cost of labor/supplies of having to write the refund check, and mail it to the patient. Versus if the office had just waited to send a statement for the correct amount to the patient, and gotten paid by them. The industry average for mailing a statement to a patient is around $10. If you add up your time spent getting the refund check written, including a letter to the patient as to why they are getting the refund, the envelope and the stamp, I am guessing you have just gone over $10. Practice just lost money.
I am all about my docs getting paid what they are owed, but not to the point where the cost/benefit ratio of doing something like this LOSES the practice money, and potentially ticks off patients.
If the experienced employee wants to continue doing this, they better have a system in place so that they are collecting the correct amounts. And that system will likely result in extra labor costs, and lose the practice money. Again.
