Financial Management Focus: Monitoring and Managing Client Fee Collections Webinar

Collecting client fees for family planning services can be best achieved by establishing and monitoring policies and practices on payment and collections, educating clients on these policies, and training staff. Once a client leaves, collecting payment becomes more difficult and time-consuming. This webinar from March 2018 is on strategies related to monitoring and managing client fee collections, a best practice highlighted in the Financial Management Change Package. We will focus on managing discounted fee collections for uninsured/self-pay clients at time of visit.

On October 4, 2021, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Population Affairs (OPA) amended the Title X regulations to restore access to equitable, affordable, client-centered, quality family planning services for more Americans. The 2021 final rule revoked the 2019 regulations and readopted the 2000 regulations with several revisions for increasing access to equitable, affordable, client-centered, quality family planning services; it went into effect on November 8, 2021. While the material presented in the archived webinar is still accurate, it is important to note several points in the final rule into your practice around client fee collections. First, while monitoring and managing client fee collections is an essential component of managing financial health, make sure that costs do not present a barrier to services. Secondly, family income should be assessed before determining whether copays or additional fees are shared. Third, Title X agencies are required to "take reasonable measures to verify client income, without burdening clients from low-income families. Recipients that have lawful access to other valid means of income verification because of the client's participation in another program may use those data rather than reverify income or rely solely on a client's self-report. If a client's income cannot be verified after reasonable attempts to do so, charges are to be based on the client's self-reported income." Finally, with regard to insured clients, clients whose family income is at or below 250% of the federal poverty level (FPL) should not pay more in copays or additional fees than what they would otherwise pay when a schedule of discounts is applied. 

Objectives:

• Describe the importance of monitoring and managing client fee collections
• Identify at least one strategy to improve client fee collections at time of visit
• Identify one performance indicator sites can utilize to measure performance
• Describe one tool available to manage client fees

Time: 1 hour

Certificate of Completion: Yes - available after completing the evaluation at the end of the recording