Developing a Calculator to Improve Fee Collections from Clients with Insurance
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Developing this tool increased our understanding of how third party billing impacts client out-of-pocket fees. Using it reinforces that understanding and increases our subrecipients’ ability to collect appropriate fees from clients.Mary Kellington, Family Planning Program Consultant
As one of the grantees that participated in the financial management learning collaborative, the Washington Department of Health (WA DOH) expressed interest in implementing a tool to help its network of subrecipients improve the collection of client fees.
The Financial Management Change Package, a quality improvement tool designed to help Title X grantees increase revenue, identifies monitoring and managing client fee collections as a best practice. During and after the learning collaborative, WA DOH staff, worked with FPNTC to refine a Client Fees Calculator that would enable their subrecipients to charge their insured clients the correct co-pays, deductibles, and co-insurance. Calculator users can adjust several columns in the customizable spreadsheet that includes information regarding charges, client discount, insurance contracted amount, and a client’s need for confidential billing. The remaining columns auto-populate and identify the accurate amount to charge the client. The spreadsheet breaks down charges to show the amount insurance will pay and the amount that will be written off as bad debt or due to contractual obligation.
WA DOH uses the calculator when providing technical assistance to subrecipient billing and front desk staff or when subrecipients are onboarding new front desk and billing staff. WA DOH staff have found this tool to be especially useful to subrecipients new to Title X.
The calculator can also be used by Title X grantees to support training their sites on collecting charges from clients with insurance. To learn more about financial management, explore the Financial Management Toolkit.