BILLING AND COLLECTION POLICY
- There is no charge for an initial evaluation appointment with a practitioner. Upon completion of the initial evaluation appointment, each patient meets with our office personnel to go over the following:
- Charge of the item being provided.
- Deductible and Coinsurance estimates, as determined per our contact with patient’s insurance company and their applicable benefits.
- The deductible/coinsurance or any other amount not covered by insurance becomes the patient’s responsibility at the time of the delivery appointment.
- Payment plans are available (only for automatic monthly draft with approval from management) if patient is unable to pay full amount due at delivery. Staff with discuss the parameters that include down payment and monthly terms.
- Unless the product/service order is cancelled within 24 hours of the evaluation, the patient is responsible for the payment for the work performed regardless of whether the patient picks up the product/device or schedules a fitting. Patients are called a minimum of 3 times to inform them that their product/device is available.
- The insurance companies, with whom the patient is a member of, will be billed by Palmetto O&P. Note: product is provided to the patient, not to an insurance company, thus the insurance company is responsible to the patient and the patient is ultimately responsible to see that the insurance company pays on their claims. We will help by filing the claim on the patient’s behalf and answering insurance questions. but ask that the patient follow up with the insurance company if they do not pay the claim within 90 days.
- Initial invoices are sent to patients after billing/payment of insurance
- On day 29 Letter 1 “Past Due” is sent to patient
- On day 45 Letter 2 “Late Fee” is sent to patent (currently a $25 late fee is added to balance)
- On day 61 Letter 3 “Seriously Past Due” is sent to patient
- On day 77 Letter 4 “Final Demand’ is sent to patient
- On day 93 Drops to Billing Cycle Complete Status in Brightree Collections
- Accounts staff will call patient, no less than twice, to request payment in full or set-up a payment plan
- After internal steps have been taken and if no payment plan has been set up and/or no payments have been received, the account is turned over to a collection agency.
