Medical Offices Feeling Pain of Weaken...( $800 Billion Bailout Doesn't Provide ...),Health

$800 Billion Bailout Doesn't Provide Cure

WESTMONT, Ill., April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- As the economy continues to weaken, medical offices don't even have immunity to the side effects. The recent $800 billion bailout plan includes money for automating patient records, which may help reduce the cost of delivering healthcare, but nothing to help the doctors' offices get paid by patients.

According to a recent national survey of medical offices conducted by InfoSurv on behalf of EasyPay Solutions, 18 percent of respondents reported that over the last year, patient receivable accounts increased between 10 and 25 percent. Additionally, 28 percent revealed that bad debt expenses, or money not collected from patients, increased between 10 and 25 percent, directly affecting the doctor's take-home income.

"Combine skyrocketing unemployment rates, the collapse of the housing market and the Wall Street crisis and it negatively impacts the financial health of medical offices," reports Dave Crooks, president of EasyPay Solutions, an advanced software product that uniquely solves the problem of collecting patient balances (from patients with the capacity to pay). "With consumers struggling to pay for their mortgage, insurance, groceries and other necessities, medical bills often end up at the bottom of the pile. Studies report that 20 percent of consumers are currently having trouble meeting their medical bills...and the problem may only get worse before it gets better."

The EasyPay survey also reveals that more then 60 percent of medical offices are somewhat or very concerned with the alarming trend of increased bad debt, while nearly 12 percent report that the doctors' take home pay has been negatively impacted due to patient account receivables.

Patient account receivables not only take a financial toll on doctors' offices but on their staffs' time as well. Survey findings reveal that nea
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