Offering Financial Assistance

As health care professionals, we all recognize that uninsured or underinsured individuals require medical care just like everyone else. With careful planning, your organization can offer financial assistance to those who need it while protecting your facility’s financial security.

By implementing a financial assistance program, your patients will have the possibility to have the kind of medical treatment that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford.

Before you begin offering financial assistance, have a well written policy for your employees to refer to. This guarantees that all patients that apply for financial assistance are treated fairly and equally.

At the center of your financial assistance program is determining your patient’s financial need. Create a form that you can utilize to obtain verifiable information such as current household income, number of dependents in the home, and monthly expenses.

The federal poverty guidelines are an adequate basis for establishing standards for your financial assistance program. This will help you to identify and determine which type of assistance you will offer to what income level. Based on this information you can offer uninsured or underinsured discounts, reduced deductible or copay, payment plan or debt forgiveness.

When developing your financial assistance program, be sure you establish whether you will use a dollar amount or a percentage of the patients you treat each month to determine the limit. Assess your facility’s finances carefully decide how much money your practice can actually afford to write-off as charity care.