As you probably know, in addition to our ToPS clients that we work with around the country, we have a group of dental offices that we manage on a daily basis. Among other benefits, it provides us with an active laboratory in which to test and implement everything we teach. Occasionally we come up with a real head scratcher. Here’s one that happened this week. I will share with you what happened before, during and after treatment. Feel free to comment by clicking on the “comment” icon below with your own ideas.
Before
A 61 year old, male patient came in last week for an initial exam for which he paid in full. After the exam, he was presented with a treatment plan for nearly $4,000 which included a root canal, bridge and some other restorative work. He was also presented with several financial arrangement options including third-party financing which he declined and said that he would find the way to pay for it. He signed the financial agreement and scheduled the next appointment.
During
He came in this week for the treatment which included the majority of the work. At the conclusion of the appointment he said that he had no money and would pay when he could and then left!
After
When the situation was brought to my attention, I called him for clarification. He carried on for several minutes about how he was an honest man, how connected he was in town, everyone including the mayor would vouch for him, etc. With the best verbal skills I know, I thanked him for the background and then ASKed him what he would do if he were in my shoes. He said he would probably ask the customer what he could do. So I asked him what he could do. He said that he had a hundred dollars in his pocket and that he could pay that. I concluded by telling him that objectively speaking, I had a signed financial agreement, services that had been rendered based on that agreement, and no payment. Technically that was theft of services. If he could find his way back to the office to make some type of good faith payment that day, that would be a good idea to prevent the police from becoming involved. He did come in about a half hour later and paid one hundred dollars and said that he would pay us something each month.
Will he pay more? I doubt it. We made some calls around town including the mayor’s office. The mayor had never heard of him.
Questions
I’m sure you have had things like this happen to you before. So here’s the question; if a patient signs a financial agreement, is that sufficient? Or do you choose to always error on the side of caution and ask for payment up front before treatment begins? The bigger question at this point is if when faced with a situation like this, do you choose to treat it as an exception or the rule and change everything you do because someone stiffed you?
The practice of dentistry is filled with interesting choices. What choices would you make in this situation?
I look forward to your comments.
Have a great week.
2 comments:
I believe this exapmle speaks to the basic business premis of having sound financial arrangementsb BUT not so restrictive as to make it difficult for customers to do business with you. Hopefully this is or will be a very rare occurrence. It reminds me of the concept from earlier times when store keepers would display their wares out front with little constant supervision. When aske about potential losses the astute shop keeper repied that what little loss he may have was far surpassed by the goodwill his customers received by being able to see, touch and even sample, as the case may be, his merchandise making it easy to do business with him.
What few times this has happend to me over the past 25 years, I have filed a claim in small claims court either got paid or a judgement rendered where later the individual had to settle to clear their credit before making a major purchase. On others, I just wrote it off the books and in 3 to 5 years they seem to forget and come back for further work (I ws a nice guy?) at which time I collect the past due amount and even let them off on the interest... still a nice guy! Summary: do not be so restrictive as to prevent every possible way to be "taken", this will cause you to loose out on a lot of good customers.
We solved this problem by collecting from the patient before they are taken back for treatment. We make their next appointment and ask to go ahead and take care of their fees so they don't have to bother with that after their treatment and can just leave. This has worked great for us and it eliminates the issue. If they aren't going to pay you, you find out BEFORE the doctor does the work.
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