Payments > Patient Billing

Patient Balances

(1/1)

stellerdobes:
My physician wants to start applying a 10% late fee to patient balances over 30 days old.  Is this legal?  We are in Virginia if that matters

Michele:
You need to check your state laws.  I'm not familiar with Virginia.  I believe in most states you can charge interest as long as your policy is posted and made available to patients.  Personally I think 10% for 30 days is a little harsh.

kristin:
As Michele said, you need to check your state laws. Personally, I would consider applying a set "re-billing fee" rather than a percentage on the balance. But EITHER option has to be in the written financial policy that patients have signed. You can't just suddenly do this.

Kerri:
I am in Michigan and we did this at my last Employer.  We charged a $5.oo late fee.  The law here says you can charge the patient, but if they don't pay it you have to write it off.  But it does encourage people to pay.  It's like they say in their heads wow, they must be serious about me paying.

So if you send them to collections, you can't use that late fee as part of the balance.

We also charged $25 for no shows. You would be amazed at the people that actually paid those.

Michele:
Several of our providers charge the no show fee.  Just having the policy in place (signs up indicating it) encourage people to cancel if they can't make it.  Most of them only charge when it's a repeat offender.  Everyone will occasionally miss an appointment but the no show fee is to try to stop the chronic abusers.

Navigation

[0] Message Index