Monitor changes in patients' insurance.

Well-intentioned patients who visit the office regularly might forget to tell you when they have changed insurance carriers. Sometimes your practice might provide services for quite a while before your staff notices that a carrier no longer covers a particular patient. Such a lag will result in a reduction in cash flow, and if this circumstance persists for several months and deadlines for filing claims pass, the unpaid amounts might become uncollectable from the new carrier. It can then be difficult to pursue payment from these loyal patients.

There are at least three ways to prevent this problem:

* Post a sign and remind your staff to ask all patients if there have been any changes in their insurance since their last visit.

* Require updated demographic and insurance information every 6 months.

* Use technology that will permit all pertinent members of your staff to monitor each patient's account.

In the graphic shown above, an allergy nurse who was providing "Rosalee" with weekly allergy injections noticed that several had gone unpaid (figure). When the patient was asked about this, she remembered that her employer had changed insurance carriers.

[FIGURE OMITTED]

Dr. Isenberg is an otolaryngologist in private practice in Indianapolis; [e-mail]