How to Handle Overdue Chiropractic Accounts and Maintain a Good Relationship with Patients

Back to blog home

Did you know that a chiropractor loses about 15% to 20% of annual revenue in terms of pending accounts receivables & missed payments?

You don’t have to be one of them.

Chiropractors, like other businesses, suffer from late payments from their patients. They spend a lot of money to collect outstanding chiropractic care payments, reducing total revenue.

Chiropractors seek ways to aggressively collect payments to streamline their financial flow, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of ruining their relationships with patients.

So what must be done to collect missed chiropractic care payments without jeopardizing your reputation among patients?

Want to outsource to a debt collection agency?
(WHERE EMPLOYEES MAY NOT BE LEGALLY TRAINED)

Think again!

While handing over your debt collection to an agency seems an easy option, it might be your biggest mistake. Overly aggressive and profit-driven collection agencies may engage in actions that can harm your reputation and undermine your patient relationships.

When you let a collection agency handle the dialogue, you risk losing returning or loyal patients.

Why are traditional debt collection ways not relevant to your practice anymore?

An overbearing attitude

Third-party chiropractic care collection organizations may use an unfriendly approach, such as calling your patients repeatedly to annoy, abuse, embarrass, or harass them. Such practices undermine your reputation since they are beyond your control. Because the agency represents your practice, you may potentially lose patients.

The associated costs

Collection companies can charge anywhere from 20% to 50% of your collections, depending on how much debt you need help with and how old the missed chiropractic care payments are.

Quite a sum, plus the possibility of ruining your reputation!

Prioritization of accounts

When it comes to prioritizing debt accounts, collection agencies evaluate several things. Your chiropractic practice may require payment recovery to stay solvent, but your account may not even be on their priority list.

Patients may dislike your company.

Your patients may be willing to pay for the care you provided but can’t due to unforeseen circumstances. What can be done in this situation? Hand out a sensitive topic to a third-party collection agency just to harass and lose your patients for good? Being linked with an agency that may unduly abuse your patients or violate legal boundaries is the last thing you want.

So is there a better method to collect missing chiropractic care payments and keep your patients' trust?

Why not use a debt collection software system?
Using an automated chiropractic care collections system can help your office collect the outstanding amount faster, boost efficiency, and increase revenue while keeping strong patient relationships.

The finest part is that a computer system never sleeps, forgets, or has bad days!

When you're busy providing chiropractic care and treatments, a system can handle the full debt collecting process. It boosts operational efficiency by ensuring outstanding coverage, increasing connect rates, and making chiropractic care financing more straightforward. You are always the first priority for the system.

No patient embarrassment

There is no embarrassment or pressure to pay the debt if there is no human involvement in the collecting process. Your patients get a courtesy payment reminder offering flexible payment options that can help them pay the outstanding medical amount as per their affordability & circumstances.

Avoid patient confrontation

Patients can consider calmly and sensibly about the overdue money they owe you because they have no one to challenge them. Cooler heads usually evoke favorable answers, and patients are willing to pay if reminded repeatedly and softly.

Eliminates the need for haggling

When the automated system sends a documented invoice, there are fewer to no chances of negotiation. As they get flexible options to pay for the missing chiropractic care payments, patients agree easily, and gradually your bad debt is recovered without impacting the business-patient relationship.

Denefits AR - Making debt recovery efficient and patient-centric

Denefits AR is a straightforward and effective system. It focuses on lowering DSO (Days Sales Outstanding) and processing expenses while preserving positive patient relationships.

There‘s no extra fee for your chiropractic care office to use this feature, and you can track your missing payments made by your patients.

Sounds great? Keep on reading to learn more.

Patients receive an invoice, which they can pay in full or set up a payment plan to pay off the balance. If you want to, you can also divide the transaction charge.

Sending an invoice to your patients takes less than 30 seconds. With the invoice, they will receive an email or SMS with a payment link.

Your patients can see the information from the comfort of their own homes and make payments using any device. After that, the system will continue to deliver reminders until your patient pays. You won't have to print or mail a bill, and you'll get your payments sooner with the Accounts Receivable option - a greener and faster method to collect pending chiropractic payments.

To learn more:

https://vimeo.com/418473874

Free up your time for other important tasks!
Denefits will take care of ARs for your chiropractic care office.

Let the Denefits automated accounts receivable system take the burden off your shoulders and collect your written-off payments while you focus on treating your patients.