When you consider that co-pays or co-insurance made by patients represent about 20% of the physician’s revenue, it’s pretty clear that it is a substantial income stream. However, many physicians collect roughly 60% of what they are owed in terms of co-pays which means that they are earning a lot less than they should.

Here are ten simple methods you can use to increase your co-pay collections and boost this important income stream of your practice.

Be Open About the Co-Pay
By being transparent about your co-pay and the prices you charge, you actually make it far easier for it to be collected.

Get Co-Pay Before Patient Sees You
Train your staff to collect the co-pay first before they see you. This means that when a patient schedules an appointment, your staff person should remind them to bring the co-pay with them for the visit. Plus, if it is not paid, then it will need to be settled before their next visit.

Bring it Up with Staff Frequently
Be persistent in your efforts to remind the staff about collecting co-pays. You can make a joke about it or whatever eases the tension, but it pays to remind them on at least a weekly basis about the importance of collecting co-pays.

Make It Simple
This means that patients should be able to pay online either by credit or debit card or using online bill pay. This makes it real simple for them to pay and for you to get your co-pay.

Create Payment Options
While it’s true that many patients will not have cash on hand, have credit card readers in place so that you can take their card. You can also bill in sections of half now, half later or have other options so that it makes it more likely that patients will pay.

Be Appreciative of Your Staff

It’s never fun to bill anyone, so be sure that your staff is properly motivated with incentive programs that help them strive to collect co-pays regularly.

Use the Right Billing Software
To keep track of your medical billing services and in particular the collection of your co-pays, be sure to use the best software for the job so that everyone knows about who owes what in your practice.

Keep Track of the Results
To improve your medical billing services, you will need to keep track of what you have been doing and comparing it to the improvements you have made to the system. Over time, you’ll see how much your co-pay collection services have improved and what you can do to make them better.

Take Advantage of the USPS Address Service
A small fee will allow you to track patients through the mail who have moved since your last billing.

Use a Third Party Agency for Long Overdue Collections
To make your medical billing services even more efficient, send the old co-pays that have yet to be collected to a third party. They will take a percentage of what is owed, but you will get at least some of the money that is owed to you.