Managing Client Payments

Video Transcription

[MUSIC PLAYING] Managing client payments is our focus in this lesson. Here will revisit the client intake as well as ongoing sessions with an eye toward billing and receiving payments. The specifics include-- collecting payment, policies on nonpayment, and outstanding balances. You'll need several different strategies for approaching clients about payment. Talking about money can be difficult, but it is essential to good business practices. Financial policies can be listed in the intake paperwork, highlights can be hung on the waiting room wall, and you can have a dedicated page on your website. Posting policies all of these places can make the payment requirements more accessible to clients.

Having several different means of accepting payments such as in-office, online, and by mail can also improve payments. It is best practice to collect the payment immediately before or after each session and to not let nonpayment extend beyond one session. Payment is made easier through checking each client's eligibility with their insurance company. By doing this, you'll know if the client is insured and how much he or she may owe for each session. Once the co-insurance, co-pay, and deductible is known, it's important to reconcile any outstanding payments as quickly as possible.

The ideal in billing is to not let clients get behind in payments, but it will happen. Even when you have an office administrator or biller to handle billing and accounting, there will likely be outstanding balances on an ongoing basis. You want to make every effort to keep an outstanding balance as below 3% to 5% of total profit. Some ways to prevent nonpayment include-- having the client agree to leave a credit card on file, charging late fees after 30 days, charge a fee for not paying co-pays at each session such as $6, charging the client a "no show" fee such as $65 per session.

So you want to consider and consider sending any outstanding balances 9 to 12 months to collections. You'll also have to decide when a client can no longer be seen due to nonpayment. You may also want to institute a payment plan with the client paying a partial balance in order to continue treatment. Yes, these can be tough and awkward situations, but ones that you need to be prepared for by having policies and procedures in place and a willingness to keep the health of your counseling practice a top priority. Here's what we covered in this lesson-- first, collecting payment; next, policies on nonpayment and outstanding balances.