Halloween could be your most profitable time of year – if you play things right. People are gorging on sugar, sinking their teeth into caramel apples, and all that candy corn has a habit of sticking around.
To ensure yourself a treat of a Halloween, you’ve got to watch out for the tricks. Dental debt collection can be a “sweet” process, and you don’t even have to buy a costume to scare up some great results.
Hobgoblins: What exactly is a hobgoblin, anyway? Probably something scary, but with such a funny name, they don’t sound so harmful. Hobgoblins in your dental practice are the people who give you the run around. You’re chasing them for payment, they’re hiding, then they pop out every once in a while. You may even see them at appointments again, even though they haven’t yet paid for past ones. How much of your staff’s time do you want to invest in this type of game, when they could be caring for patients and attending to administrative matters?
Vampires: The difference between “real” vampires and the ones you’ve seen in your practice? These vamps don’t just come out at night. In fact, they’re in your office chairs during the day, as they obtain service from your practitioners. People who don’t pay their medical bills can suck you dry. It’s not your blood, but your life blood – the money you need to reinvest in your practice and the people who work for you. Think you can afford to lose a little trickle of blood here and there? Think again. Why would you consider working for free? Every penny (and platelet!) counts.
Werewolves: Another of the “only come out at night” breed of Halloweenies. Werewolf-type patients are a serious threat to keeping your dental practice humming because they exhibit great payment practice behavior, but can then turn on a dime. Much like the werewolf that sprouts claws, fur, and fangs when the moon turns full, werewolf patients drain your staff’s resources because they leave your group confounded. That long-term patient you’ve seen from baby teeth through dentures may suddenly “go wolf,” racking up late payment fees and avoiding your calls. You won’t know why (because he’s not around to tell you), which can feel like a personal insult and sting like a bite from a hungry werewolf!
Ghosts: These folks are the most serious threats to your medical practice. The good news? They’re not really ghosts. The bad news? They’re almost as hard to find, and all that “Ghost Hunter” and night vision equipment isn’t going to unearth them. Fortunately, good dental collections companies can act as your own ghost hunters, but they call it skip tracing. This is the process of locating those ghosts (or “skips”) and bringing them into an agreement to pay you what they owe. Skips don’t say “boo,” but they may say “boo hoo!”
Knock Knock! They say opportunity knocks, but as we’ve shown here, so do a lot of scary things with the potential to darken your doorstep. So how do you protect yourself year-round, not just on the single Free Candy Day of the year? Start with our treat here, a free e-paper on managing patient payments. It’s not covered in chocolate or dusted with sugar, but we think you’ll really want to sink your fangs into it.
