Healthcare in the United States is expensive and residents in Missouri are deeply affected by the burden of health care costs. According to the Commonwealth Fund state data center, Missouri is ranked eighth worst in healthcare among the fifty US states.
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Overdue medical bills can result in severe cash flow issues for doctors. They must transfer accounts to a HIPAA collection agency after 60-90 days of non-payment. Debt collection agencies operating in Missouri must be licensed and bonded. The state of Indiana has its own laws that regulate debt collection practices. These laws often mirror the FDCPA but may provide additional protections or requirements.
If a consumer disputes a debt in writing within 30 days of the first communication from the debt collector, the debt collector must stop collection efforts until they have provided verification of the debt.
A survey conducted by the Research Triangle Institute showed that about twenty percent of adults between the ages of 19 to 64 are uninsured in Missouri. This means that about a million people, including children, live in households carrying medical debt. The process of medical debt collection significantly affects patients and medical providers such as doctors, clinics and hospitals in Missouri. They provide valuable patient services and must be reimbursed appropriately to continue providing high-quality clinical services. Healthcare workers and debt collection agencies in Missouri should clearly understand the laws and regulations for medical debt collection to avoid getting sued if they violate a federal debt collection law.
Missouri does not have state-specific laws for medical debt collection. Debt collection agencies operating in Missouri must comply with the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. This law protects patients from undergoing harassment and abuse as a result of debt collection.
Under the Fair Debt Collection Practice act, debt collectors are not allowed to call someone before 8 am and after 9 pm. They are also not allowed to call the individual at work if they do not want to be contacted. Debt collectors must keep the information about the debt private and cannot disclose that they are a debt collection agency via mail etc.
When patients cannot pay for the services they receive, lowered provider reimbursements can result in poorer care with poor patient outcomes resulting in a vicious cycle. Medical practices and hospitals can hire collection agencies to recover lost money from non-paying patients.
Along with a lack of insurance coverage, other reasons for nonpaying patients include patients’ lack of education or knowledge about their insurance coverage, rise in healthcare costs, Medicaid cuts, high deductible health plans, other consumer debt such as student loans and credit card payments etc.
If you are a hospital or a doctor’s office, you may use a debt collection agency to ensure you get paid for your services. This is because the staff in a medical setting might not be well-trained in the laws of debt collection. Another reason why medical offices and hospitals also choose to use a debt collection agency is that they may not want their name associated with ethics associated with the actual practice of debt collection from patients who were sick. Here are some things you should remember when sending patient’s accounts to debt collectors:
- Hospitals and doctors’ offices should have a policy stating when to send a patient’s account to collections. This policy should ideally be shared with patients and signed by them. This is typically 30-60 days.
- After determining their final insurance coverage, patients’ accounts should be sent to collections.