Insured patients typically expect to make a small co-payment when they see a doctor, and later get billed for anything else they owe. But physicians no longer want to wait for their money.
Medical practices and clinics increasingly are asking people to fork over their entire out-of-pocket charge as they’re walking out after a visit. That could include paying amounts a patient owes toward their health plan’s deductible and a percentage of the cost of care under a co-insurance requirement. Patients who are uninsured also are being asked for money upfront, or at least signed up for a payment plan. And physician practices have started demanding patients pay in advance for outpatient surgeries and expensive imaging scans, a practice that certain hospitals have long enforced.
A questionnaire sent to its medical-practice customers by NaviNet Inc., which provides a Web service that allows doctors to communicate with insurers, found that more than half of the 650 respondents were trying to get money beyond just co-payments during patients’ visits. Settling the bill before leaving the doctor’s office represents a new style of payment that many patients are still getting used to. Jen Brull, a family physician in Plainville, Kan., says the staff in her office had to teach people “that, just like when I go to Wal-Mart I have to pay before I leave, I
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