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Home Contact Return to Your Business Debt Collection for Medical Centres.New Zealand medical centres often struggle with collecting debts. Obligated to see patients who require treatment, particularly in urgent situations, medical centres will often have to extend credit to their patience. Whilst the value of each outstanding invoice will not be great - sometimes as little as $10 or $20 - over a year, if not collected, these outstanding invoices can add up to thousands of dollars. This is money which the medical centre cannot afford to lose from its' budget. Having a clear process for collecting overdue accounts and engaging with a reputable and capable collection agency can have a dramatic effect on cash flow. At Total Debt Solutions, we collect overdue accounts for several Medical Centres. We notice that where the medical centre fully engages with the collection process we achieve much better results. To maximise your results from the collection process, the key elements are: Thorough collection of patient information (most medical centres are pretty good at this). Including date of birth, middle names, etc. A clear process outlining the terms and conditions for engaging your services. This should include signage which clearly states that collection fees will be added to overdue accounts. A follow-up routine built into the monthly admistration cycle. Typically, this will mean following up overdue accounts with texts and phone calls and monthly statements. Adding an admin fee of $5 or $10 each month will help to pay for this and encourage patience to pay on the day. Once accounts get past 60 days we recommend sending a seven day letter. Then, if payment is not received in seven days,
send the account for debt collection.
If you routinely send all overdue accounts to a good agency that knows how to collect this sort of debt efficiently, you will find that the amount of bad debt being written off each year will reduce significantly. Home Contact Return to Your Business |