It’s happened to almost every dentist clinic or specialist medical practitioner at least once. The dreaded “runner” who has left without paying, leaving often large debt to collect.
Not only has a timeslot been taken that could have been filled with an honest person who pays, but more often than not there are also out of pocket expenses such as wages, materials and other sundry items.
Although many dentists or specialists simply right off the lost revenue as a bad debt, they do have an opportunity to recover the monies through a third party debt collection agency.
But even if they do this, sometimes they are in for another shock. The person has provided invalid personal information. Sometimes it’s a friend or family member, but more often than not it is completely bogus information.
From a debt collection perspective, that is a complete dead end. There is little a collection agency can do without at least some accurate information to trace a person.
In recent month, it’s apparent that this is a problem becoming more and more prevalent. The debt collection industry is already busy, these sorts of debts waste time and money for the agency as well.
However, there is a solution to the problem. Capturing and authenticating patient information accurately.
Requesting proof of identification, and in some cases a full credit check is perfectly legitimate. With some procedures costing many thousands of dollars, the credit risk warrants robust and accurate procedures.
Staff need to be educated to follow very methodical steps in bringing on new clients. There need to be forms that capture all required details, and these should be validated as much as possible. Asking for a driver’s license and calling or texting a mobile phone are not unreasonable.
In the situation where a fee is to be paid off, undertaking a credit check is also perfectly reasonable. You are providing credit, the risk is with your establishment.
As long as all information is captured, in the event of a collection being required, there is a very high success rate of a successful debt collection.
If you would like assistance in setting up procedures and templates feel free to contact us.