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Opinion needed on unhappy client

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Lisa@srts-inc.com:
I have an unhappy client and am looking for opinions on how you would handle this situation.

We have handled her billing since 2003 and recently she had a patient who has a credit balance on her account of $500.00.  The client feels that we should should help her pay back a large percent of this amount to the patient.  The credit started out at $170.00 and we had a former employee who did not inform her for almost a year, but since then she has been faxed, called, sent multiple credit reports over a 2 year span now and she let it accumulate to $500.00.

The client feels since we did not notify her right away that we should be responsible for a good portion of the payback.  This client is billed on a percentage of her collections so we gave her a credit on her bill which equals a little more than our percentage of the total $500.00.  She was overpaid by $500.00 not us and our feeling is she got the extra money and we gave her a credit since there was a small error on our part but we do not feel any more responsibility than that.

She has been a good client and we ant to keep her happy but on the other hand we have been a great service for her and since 2003 this is her only complaint with us and she ignored our notices and let this balance increase.

She did not think our credit was sufficient.

What would you do??

Pay_My_Claims:
The question is what is it worth to you? $500.00 for some is a lot of money. I think your issue isn't the money but the principle, and you and your client both seem to be at a stand still on that ground. You see your fault up to the time of notification, From what I read, the client owes the $170.00, and you owe the difference from the 170.00 to the date you began notification, and she owes the rest after that. I don't know what you can do at this point, because what I would have done from the beginning just won't help you now.

Lisa@srts-inc.com:
Thank you for you input.

The client received and owes the patient the entire $500.00, we didn't get any of this money, she received and kept all the extra money the patient paid her.  Our blame is not telling her there was a credit on the patient's account until it was at $170.00, she then continued to take money from the patient that she was told not to and it has now increased to a credit of $500.00.

Pay_My_Claims:
Wow, well it is my experience that most providers don't like to give refunds. Does the patient know she is owed the money?? There is one thing for me to swallow the cost of my mistake, but not swallow the cost of my mistake and someone's "take". I would stand on my moral ground. After 7 years of doing her billing, it has to stand for something. As I stated its not the $500.00 because even if you paid it and kept the client, you would feel miserable afterwards.

PMRNC:
I personally wouldn't refund the client anything. You didn't charge the provider for any portion of that credit therefore why would you reimburse her on money SHE collected? Doesn't even slightly make sense since you didn't collect anymore than your percentage. I would stand firm and tell the provider you stand by your method and your contract. She owes the patient.. plain and simple. If the patient makes a stink, it's her responsibility! Also what about her looking at her accounts, surely this credit appeared somewhere in a report (A/R) somewhere and again, it's not your responsibility. What I would do however is look at your compliance and procedure guidelines to make sure you follow the protocol for alerting the provider of credit refunds and maybe tweak your policy on that for the future.

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