Questions for Dr. Stern

About Your Urgent Care Center

89. For uninsured patients, how much discount should be given?  70% off charges? Particularly in California.

It would be extremely rare to offer such a big discount to self-pay patients. It would be unadvisable for the following reasons:

• Unless your fee schedule is ridiculously high, you could not operate profitably at these discounts.
• Discounts should be given not for being self-pay, but for paying in full at time of service.
• You will need to watch out for accepting any fees that are below a Medicare fee schedule, as this may produce legal problems, if you are participating in the Medicare program.

Feel free to contact us with billing and coding questions.

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David Stern, MD, CPC CEO, Practice Velocity Partner, Physicians Immediate Care Board Member, Urgent Care      Association of America Dr. Stern helped design the patent-pending Practice Velocity template (PiVoT) that is now used in over 240 urgent care centers. He is board certified in internal medicine and served as Chief Resident in Internal Medicine at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Stern received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University after completing undergraduate studies at Houghton College in Houghton, NY. Dr. Stern serves on the Board of Directors of the Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA). A Certified Professional Coder, Dr. Stern writes articles and presents at numerous national and regional conferences on topics, including medical charting, emr, medical coding and medical practice management. With additional partners of John Koehler, MD (CEO) and Terry Buzzard, MD (Regional Medical Director), they operate the urgent care consulting firm of National Med Network and the ten clinics (in Illinois and Oklahoma) of Physicians Immediate Care.

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