1. Keep track of patients who haven't paid. With an increase in high deductible plans and general economic challenges, more patients are having their bills sent to collections, and this will often lead a practice to eventually write-off unpaid co-pays and deductibles. Considering that patients can be repeat customers to a practice, some non-paying patients will eventually return, says Kevin Weinstein, vice president of marketing for ZirMed, a billing solutions, patient collection solutions and revenue cycle management company. To combat accruing additional unpaid services for the same patients, develop a policy and procedure followed by schedulers where the scheduler looks on a list or a note within your billing system during the scheduling process, and identifies if a patient previously had a balance the practice wrote off or is currently in the active collections process. The scheduler can educate the patient about the outstanding bills when they call for another appointment.

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