Why do you only take cash for copays?
**UPDATE- we now accept Zelle payments for copays**
As you may already know, we are an independent office. We are not part of a large physician group or hospital system. While there are not too many of us left, I feel strongly that this independence allows us to deliver the best medical care without having to answer to others or having to meet artificial health benchmarks. The downside of running independently is that there is a larger overhead cost that is not subsidized by a hospital or group.
In order to be on insurance plans we need to accept what these plans deem appropriate compensation which tends to be much lower than actual compensation. In addition, because billing is so complicated in this industry, we need to hire a separate company to sort through the red tape of billing and, of course, they also take a percentage.
Were we to accept credit cards that would be an additional percentage that they would take off the top. At some point I have to draw a line in order to make it feasible financially to continue to practice independently. While a small percentage taken from your copay may not seem like a lot, over the course of a year with over one hundred patients seen each week it does add up.
I do appreciate that this policy does cause a minor inconvenience to patients, I can only hope that the quality of care that you receive here makes up for this. This policy contributes to our ability to be proudly independent. In a pinch, we will accept a personal check but we stopped taking them routinely several years ago due to the number of bounced checks that we would receive.
**UPDATE- we now accept Zelle payments for copays**
As you may already know, we are an independent office. We are not part of a large physician group or hospital system. While there are not too many of us left, I feel strongly that this independence allows us to deliver the best medical care without having to answer to others or having to meet artificial health benchmarks. The downside of running independently is that there is a larger overhead cost that is not subsidized by a hospital or group.
In order to be on insurance plans we need to accept what these plans deem appropriate compensation which tends to be much lower than actual compensation. In addition, because billing is so complicated in this industry, we need to hire a separate company to sort through the red tape of billing and, of course, they also take a percentage.
Were we to accept credit cards that would be an additional percentage that they would take off the top. At some point I have to draw a line in order to make it feasible financially to continue to practice independently. While a small percentage taken from your copay may not seem like a lot, over the course of a year with over one hundred patients seen each week it does add up.
I do appreciate that this policy does cause a minor inconvenience to patients, I can only hope that the quality of care that you receive here makes up for this. This policy contributes to our ability to be proudly independent. In a pinch, we will accept a personal check but we stopped taking them routinely several years ago due to the number of bounced checks that we would receive.
