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Article: Bad debt rising: when to sell your accounts receivable.
- Article from:
- Healthcare Financial Management
- Article date:
- August 1, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Healthcare Financial Management Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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They merged their identities, their facilities, and their mission statements. And then they attempted to merge their bad debt. In the case of two large Midwest hospitals that merged in 1997, determining what to do with a combined bad debt of more than $100 million was one of the most difficult decisions hospital administrators had to make. Faced with the challenge of how to address the hospital's unpaid accounts receivable was a team of financial executives from the two hospitals--the CFOs, patient accounts directors, and controllers.
Debbe Winkle, former interim director of patient accounts for one of the hospitals, was on the team. She recalls that, following ...