Experts have debt management suggestions, but do patients take them?

Apr 13, 2015 | Healthcare Accounts Receivable

Generally, the burden of medical debt on individual consumers is reported in statistics. For example, 20 percent of all consumers face a collection related to outstanding medical bills. While that figure highlights a significant trend, it's easy to forget that behind the statistic are millions of consumers struggling with financial insecurity. 

As a result, there are plenty of resources online to help individuals manage and address an excess of medical debt. From tips to advisors, the media is full of advice about how to stay on top of medical payments before they become extraordinary. Making smart decisions on the forefront of billing can prevent debts from mounting to the point that they're impossible to get out from under. 

One of the strategies Roxie Rodgers Dinstel, who writes the Pinching Pennies blog for the News Miner paper in Alaska, suggests is organizing the material visually. 

"Keep on top of the bills and payments received," she advises. "When I was keeping up with my parents' medical bills with both Medicare and a supplemental insurance policy, I made a flow chart to keep up with which bills had gone to each of the different companies. That was the only way I could say where each bill and the payment on these bills were."

Research shows that many Americans aren't so proactive about their medical payments and get lost under the burden. This creates a high volume of cases that health care administrators manage. When care facilities outsource receivables management, they lessen the volume of outstanding claims and collections to keep track of. This allows them to focus on the most high-priority entries in a particular caseload. Contact us today to learn more about how to improve efficiency in your medical office.