Amanda Waesch, Esq., is a healthcare Attorney at Brennan, Manna & Diamond. Her practice focuses on healthcare, employment law and healthcare litigation across the country. She advises healthcare providers including practices and hospitals on reviewing and litigating employment agreements; non-compete agreements and severance agreements. Her work has benefited physicians and administrators in drafting and reviewing employer handbooks, as well as management and training issues.
Copays: What to Charge, When to Waive & How to Collect More
Unfortunately, you are in a no-win situation. Failing to collect copays and deductibles can get you into just as much trouble as collecting them incorrectly.
How much should you collect? Can you discount? What about professional courtesy visits? Can copays be waived? How does balanced billing fit in? Can you offer prompt payment reductions? Does waiving copay violate the Anti-Kickback Statute? Etc.
Improperly collecting copays for both private and government payers can lead to severe violations (although for different reasons). In fact, several court cases have found healthcare practices guilty of fraud for failure to collect copays and deductibles correctly. The punishment for these violations includes civil damages and forfeiture, civil monetary penalties, imprisonment, criminal fines, and payer exclusions.
Reduce Risk When Collecting Copays
The good news is that you can reduce your risk of being penalized for incorrectly collecting copays…
This is where healthcare attorney Amanda Waesch, Esq., can help you protect your practice. Amanda is presenting a 60-minute online training that will walk you through exactly how your practice can avoid copay collection violations and still receive the payments you are due.
Copays: Avoid Violations
Here are just a few of the tactics you’ll receive during this training that will help you better protect your practice from errors when collecting copays:
- Avoid costly violations due to discount, waiver, and write-off policies
- Offer prompt-payment discounts without breaching copay rules
- Pin down when NEVER to balance bill uncollected funds
- Effectively communicate collection policy to patients to slash risk
- Master financial hardship waiver requirements to head off costly errors
- Uncover how professional discounts can violate Anti-Kickback laws
- Utilize an Advanced Beneficiary Notice (ABN) to avoid penalties
- Bulletproof your copay/deductible collections policy to reduce compliance risk
- Prevent the No Surprises Act from reducing your rightful collections
- Determine what constitutes “routine” when issuing a copay waiver
- Identify copay/deductible collection policy mistakes and correct them
- Stop fraud allegations related to write-offs and bad debt
- Tap into payer contract “lowest rate” clauses to minimize liability
- Implement collection policy training dos and don’ts to protect against fraud
- And so much more…
Collect Copays the Right Way
On its face, the process of collecting copays seems pretty straightforward, but there are about a million ways your practice can get into serious trouble if it’s not done correctly. The only way to protect your practice against violating numerous requirements pertaining to both private and government payer rules is to master the information provided in this online training.
Meet Your Expert
