Have you ever heard of write-offs? How they are useful to the billing services in the healthcare industry? The simple term is quite beneficial for the patient or payers for the service availed. The write-offs are the amount that is removed from the bill of the patient with the intention of not collecting them in the future. The provider or the hospital removes the amount. The common practice of medical billing is quite crucial. Any amount deducted from a medical bill is described as a write-off. Let us understand more about the topic.

Different Write-offs help in Different Ways

The unexpected payment from the patients is deducted by the provider at the time of preparation of books of accounts for the hospitals, or an individual level of medical practitioners. The best medical billing takes care of write-offs and helps the healthcare industry in managing its books. Let us get some information about the types of write-offs.

Charity Write-Offs

The charity write-offs are not considered bad debts. The charity write-off in medical billing refers to the removal of the amount from the patient’s bill. This is provided to the patients who are unable to afford the expenses of the hospital. Bad debts are when the patient is expected to pay for the services rendered to him but doesn’t pay it. So, a charity write-off is a sort of facility provided to the patient who is unable to pay for hospital expenses.

Contractual Write-Offs

A contractual agreement between the patient and the insurance companies leads to contractual write-offs. The billing services take appropriate measures to look into writing off the expenses from the patient’s bill according to the terms of the contract. The extra amount charged to the patients by the hospitals is reduced with the help of contractual write-offs. If we take an example, we will understand it better. If a hospital is charging $100 for rendering its service, and the term of insurance is $90, then $10 would be written off from the bill of the patient. 

Small Balance Write-Offs

The small balance write-offs refer to the small payments under twenty-five dollars that are considered uncollectible on the patient’s account. These low amount bills are written off by the medical billing experts. But these write-offs are maintained in the patient’s account to collect during the next visit of the patient to the doctor.

How do Medical Billers Manage Write-Offs?

With the help of taking into consideration the following key points the medical billing professionals properly manage write-offs. Let us look at the same.

• Billing Services experts start with the basic write-offs and add write-off categories as required
• The proper decision accompanied by perfect compliance is needed in the writing-off procedure. The biller should get each write-off approved with the respective approving authority
• Reviewing the write-offs thoroughly moving up with the latest trends
• Audit is necessary at a certain period to ensure the write-offs are initiated accurately or not.

The Conclusion

The bottom line concludes that the write-off is helpful for both the patients and the doctors. The patients in need feel privileged to have a write-off process. Medical practitioners get aid in getting the proper books of account managed with the accurate implementation of write-offs at the right place.