Turn an Account Over to Collections
With a solid practice financial policy and ongoing personal A/R management, you may have very few accounts that require a collection agency. When you need to use one, however, you can update the account record to indicate it is in collection and adjust charges so they will be handled correctly.
PCC has two different recommended procedures for turning an account over to a collection agency. Your office can consider these options and create your own collection policy.
Which Accounts Should a Practice Turned Over to Collection?: You can review accounts with high, old personal balances using the Personal Money Tracking Assistant (persview), and many other PCC reports can produce lists of accounts with old, outstanding charges. Contact PCC support for help learning these reports.
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Option A: Turn An Account Over to Collections and Adjust Off Their Charges
When you turn charges over to a collection agency, you can post an adjustment against those charges. The charges will no longer generate a personal bill when you process bills, and the amount due will be removed from your accounts receivable.
The steps below require a bad debt adjustment in the Payment Types table in the Tables tool in PCC EHR. You could name the payment type “Bad Debt Adjustment (Collections)” or “Sent to Collection”.
Follow these steps to turn an account over to collection and adjust off the charges.
Print Charge Information for the Collection Agency
Use the Account Balances component to produce a summary of outstanding charges for the collection agency. You may want to print to a PDF file and keep a copy for your practice’s records as well.
Use the Payments Tool to Write Off the Charges
Open the Payments tool for the account and post a debt adjustment, applying it towards the overdue charges.
To learn how, read Write Off Charges and Bad Debt.
Add Status Flag(s) and Record Your Actions
Add account and/or patient status flags to indicate the account is in collection. Your practice can configure certain status flags to prevent scheduling for the patient or any dependents on an account.
Use the Notes component to record information about your process, including the total amount sent to collection, dates of service, or any other information that may be useful.
When you receive a payment from the collection agency, you can post it in one of two ways:
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Delete the adjustment you posted above and then post the payment using a payment type that indicates the payment was from a collection agency.
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Post a “Collection Income” administrative encounter from the Billing History, then post a collection payment against that procedure.
Whichever method you use, be sure and carefully note your actions in the notes for the account.
Option B: Pend the Charges to a Collection Agency
You can pend charges to a collection agency just as you would pend them to an insurance company. The family will no longer receive personal bills from your practice, and the collection agency will bill the account directly. The charges you turn over to the collection agency will remain as balances on the patient’s account, and they will remain part of your practice’s total accounts receivable.
For this procedure to work, you will need:
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An insurance group named “Collections” or similar. You can add this group in the Tables tool in PCC EHR.
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An insurance plan named “Collections” or similar. You can add this plan in the Tables tool in PCC EHR.
Follow these steps when an account is turned over to collection:
Print Charge Information for the Collection Agency
Use the Account Balances component to produce a summary of outstanding charges for the collection agency. You may want to print to a PDF file and keep a copy for your practice’s records as well.
Add the Collections Agency as a Policy for the Patient(s)
Use “Edit Charges” to Change the Responsible Party for Each Encounter
In the Billing History in the patient’s chart, select an encounter, click “Edit Charges” and then use the Procedures component to change the responsible party to the Collections policy on the account.
To learn how to change the responsible party for charges on an encounter, read Change the Copay and Responsible Party for Posted Charges.
Add Status Flag(s) and Record Your Actions
Add account and/or patient status flags to indicate the account is in collection. Your practice can configure certain status flags to prevent scheduling for the patient or any dependents on an account.
Use the Notes component to record information about your process, including the total amount sent to collection, dates of service, or any other information that may be useful.
If you use the method above to pend charges to a collection agency as you would an insurance policy, you can:
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Track the Total Amount in Collection: Use the Insurance Accounts Receivable Summary (
insaging) tool to review the outstanding totals in collections. The amount will appear in the Collections insurance group. -
Followup on Unpaid Encounters: Use the Insurance Accounts Receivable Detail (
inscoar) tool to review unpaid encounters that are in collections.
When you receive a payment from the collection agency, you can use the Insurance Payments tool in PCC EHR to post it just as you would manually post an insurance payment. You can then update the status flags and record notes for the account.