Lockbox Services

There are several reasons for a practice to consider using a Lockbox as the central point to receiving patient and insurance checks. Even though a greater number of insurance payments and correspondence are done electronically, there will still be a need to handle the volume of patient payments from deductibles and copayments. As your percentage of revenue from patients increases, the volume of patient checks will increase as well.

The lockbox service will free up your staff from the tedious task of opening all of this mail. This will allow them to maintain their other responsibilities such as patient check in, managing patient phone calls, checking patient eligibility and setting patient appointments. All of which are generally a staff killer of time and resources. The truth is that your staff has little time to ensure that insurance and patient checks are deposited quickly, not to mention posted timely.

A Lock-box service, at a typical commercial bank, receives insurance and patient checks directly from a centralized PO Box that will act as your new "Pay To" address. This allows the bank to deposit checks directly into your account multiple times a day instead of the once a week deposits you may be making now. The service also scans all EOBs and allows you online access to these files, freeing you from the clutter of paper. These files can be sorted by any date range and viewed and saved to a file on your local computer if needed.

Improving your Cash-Flow is a top priority from the business perspective. Using a lockbox service, or "remittance processing" as it is sometimes referred to as, is one of the ways to improve your staff’s ability to become more efficient. In turn your practice will become more profitable.

Check with your bank about the costs and if they have a lockbox service. There are also other commercial companies which can provide this service. Compare costs and accessibility of your funds before moving forward. The cost of the service becomes more affordable as more money passes through the lockbox.