Auto-debiting your patients’ checking or credit accounts for payment of their treatment fee is and has always been a great boon to our profession. It is interesting to note that many doctors and Financial Coordinators believe that auto-debit is some new phenomenon that has come into existence as a result of some new legislation, yet in 1970 when I started out in the banking business, we routinely auto-debited our customers’ accounts. Back then it was called auto drafting.

It is important to understand the positive marketing potential of auto-debiting, but it is much more important that you are aware of the negative marketing potential of auto-debiting. Many practices do a wonderful job of marketing and making a wonderful first impression on their patients and parents, only to ruin all that good work by requiring auto-debit when a patient asks for a monthly payment plan. What these practices are doing is telling their patients that they cannot be trusted to make their payments on their own!

Again, auto-debit is a terrific tool when used properly, i.e. “Mrs. Jones, you have chosen an 18 month payment plan, with a $600 initial payment and monthly payments of $250. If you wish, we will be happy to automatically deduct the payments from a checking, savings, or credit card account. Is that something you would like to do?”

Auto-debit is, first and foremost, a service to the patient. It is not a product you require your patients to use in order to make the Financial Coordinator’s job easier, to cut delinquency, or to increase cash flow, even though it will do all of those things!