Forced payment

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? NH

I went to the doctor for a routine visit, and was required to provide a credit card for him to put on file. He said he needs to do this with all patients and that it is used if their ballance is unpaid for several months (then you automatically are charged for the visit)

Now I NEVER went unpaid to this doctor, but I still would like to know what the law says about "incase insurance does not pay I will auto charge you". I'm not at all saying that I believe that a patient is not responsible for paying their bills. I am just concerned about this practice of holding CC info and automatically chargeing someone who has not paid, as I have not seen it in other industries.

helloworld
If receiving service from this physician is voluntary and the physician and his practice are under no obligation to provide services without regard to ability to pay, then it's legal. You don't have to use this physician if you don't want to have your credit card automatically charged and he doesn't have to see you if you don't agree to this practice. (by the way--I think it's a kind of sucky way to do business.)

EC

Thankyou ellencee,

Those are good and valid points, and I agree it is a poor way to do business. Also I have seen the same doctor for years, and it was not until I was in the waiting room that I was presented with this. Some notice would have been nice. After all I am trusting my health to someone who acts in this manner, though I know it does not change his ability as a doctor.

Thanks again.

Why not

Why would the doctors action be poor business practice? If you rent a video and fail to pay late charges on returning the video, Blockbuster will charge your credit card for the late fee a month later.

Having worked for doctors, too often they are stiffed for copays and other amounts. Collection agencies are money losing options even if collection occurs, and small claims court is not particularly enforceable.

How would you recommend the doctor make sure that the $20.00 copay, that the patient should know they are responsibe for, actually will get paid (maybe within 60 days of the actual office visit)?

You are so right, there are a lot of people out there who know how to "beat the system". One collection agent told me that the doctor is always the last to be paid. This the first time I have heard of this practice and I do agree with ellencee that it sinks rather low, however, medicine today is not what it used to be. Although I can understand the conditions that would cause some one to do this, I can't see the physicians I work for going for this. However, those unpaid co-pays do add up. I may run it by them next week and see what they think. Pele

Again, good points, however they focus primarilly on copays. He also will use this for other charges the insurance does not pay for. Granted this is still the care recipient's duty to pay if they are valid charges. I just wanted to specify because both posts were mostly copay related.

My intention for the post is two-fold. First I was curious about what the law said about the matter of requiring someone to put the card on file for autocharge if they do not pay. Personally this is because I have not seen this practice except in a few rare cases.

My second reason for posting was the lack of notice for this. Granted if it was my first visit I could understand, but as I said I saw him for years. Now upon presentation of this surprise demand I could have walked out. That is if I was that opposed to it (I'm not actually). Let us say I did do that, does he automatically forfeit the rule of needing to cancel within 24 hours or have to pay for the visit? Would he have to see me that one time even if I did not sign? Now I did not ask what he would have done as I really do not care. I won't learn anything from that, and that is the ultimate goal of this post, to learn a little more about the legal system not one person's ethics.

What I really wanted to know is what the law says about the above, most of it (the second paragraph above) was well answered by Ellencee. Some of what I included in this post seemed more like consumer law than medical which is why I did not post it in this particular forum. (I know this is malpractice but it is the closest forum for my original post).

I appreciate everyone's comments. I love coming to this board to read about some of the scenarios that can come up in our legal system. Rarely do I post, but this one really intrigued me.