The Reason Your Collection Letters Are Not Effective

Most patient collection letters I’ve seen come off very threatening and standoffish. They are written to intimidate. For example, they’ll say, “Final Notice” or “…your account will be sent to collections if you don’t respond...” The notion one is trying to convey is, you better pay now or else. At our practice, we sent out letters with these aggressive words. And most of them got ignored. So what did we do? We sent another letter but this time, with stronger words like  2nd Notice or Final Notice… you know, to get them to shake in their boots. Again, most of them were ignored. My guess is that at best, 1% of parents would respond to them. I think we offended more parents than those that sent payment. Clearly, this was the wrong approach. Not to mention highly counterproductive. I wondered if there was a better way. I thought about the reasons someone would disregard  2 or 3 statements (plus another 2 or 3 collection letters) from the doctor’s office? These 5 reasons came to mind: Genuine Oversight – This is the crowd that forgets, or procrastinates  or miss places our correspondence. Overwhelming Feeling – This is the group of people that have so many bills, thus so overwhelmed, that they take the out of sight, out of mind approach. Confusion – These are the parents that don’t understand their bills. So they set the statement aside with the hopes to call one day to find out what the deal is, but never calls. Out of si...
Source: Pediatric Inc - Category: Pediatricians Authors: Tags: Collections Customer Service Policies collection letter Front Desk Collections Parent past due past due balance Pediatrics Writing Source Type: blogs