Now that the holidays are over it is time we go back to work and prepare for a new year. And that means that almost everyone will owe another yearly deductible, may have changed insurances, may owe more for copays and most offices renew every patient’s signatures on the billing and authorization forms. The Front Office, Admission, Registration people will need to be spend a little bit more time with each patient to ensure that they have updated copies of the patient’s insurance cards, their photo ids, addresses and phone numbers.

Surprisingly, more and more people are changing their phone numbers on a fairly regular basis and holidays are the time that most phone companies are offering better deals to switch services. And, more and more people are turning off their land-lines and just using cell-phones as their main contact numbers. Updating a person’s contact information is very important not only for the Front Office Personnel to call and confirm appointments but the doctors and nurses may need to call the patient with results and, of course, the billing and collection people may need to call the patient about their balances.

When asking for a patient’s deductible payment prior to services you will need to know if they have received services anywhere else prior to the appointment with your office. Some patients may have already gone to the Emergency Room for services and depending on the timing, their billing practices, and even the deductible amount the patient may have already met their deductible with that visit. Most of your patients will have changed their insurances and/or their copayment amounts may have increased, as with everything else.

You will need to encourage patients to confirm that they are still within their network prior to making an appointment with your office. And if not, the least you can do is confirm it for them. There is nothing worse that finding out when you arrive or when you leave your appointment that you owe more than you have planned. Training your scheduling personnel in helping the patients with this information prior to scheduling saves a lot of misunderstanding and bad public relations.

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