Effective: December 17, 2020
Thank you for choosing Akumin for your imaging needs. We are committed to providing you with exceptional care, as well as making our insurance billing processes as simple and efficient as possible. Recent shifts in the healthcare industry have resulted in insurance companies increasingly transferring costs to our patients, you, the insured. This is driving many practices to adopt new financial policies to enable more efficient operational processes. Some insurance plans require deductibles and co-payments in amounts not known to you or us at the time of your visit. Our collection amount today is only an estimate as received from your insurance company. The amount is subject to change once the insurance company processes your claim.
To streamline our billing and payment system and to provide a seamless, convenient way for patients to pay their bills, effective December 17, 2020, Akumin will require all patients keep an active credit card on file with us. We will bill your insurance company and upon their determination of benefits, we will either credit or charge your credit card when they inform us of the remaining patient responsibility. Circumstances when your card would be charged (or credited) include but are not limited to:
- Missed or canceled sessions without 24-hour notice;
- Incorrectly charged co-payments, deductible and co-insurance; or
- any non-covered services and/or denial of services.
Once your insurance has processed your claims, they will send an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) to both you and our office showing the amount of your total patient responsibility. You will typically receive the EOB before we do, so if you disagree with the patient responsibility balance owed, it is your responsibility to contact your insurance carrier immediately.
When we receive the EOB, we will enter all pertinent payment information into our system. At that time, any remaining balance owed by you or to you will be processed to your credit card and a copy of the charge will be sent to you.
If the credit card we have on file for you changes, please notify us immediately by phone. It is not uncommon for people to change or cancel their credit cards for various reasons, including when a credit card expires. That is quite understandable. If we run your credit card and it is denied for any reason, we reserve the right to charge an additional $25 declined card fee if we are not able to run a new credit card within 7 days.
We will contact you or leave you a phone message on the phone number you provided for us, asking you to give us a call with the new number right away. We will enter the new credit card number into your file, and that will become your new card on-file, subject to the same financial policy as the card you gave us in-person when you were in our office.
We understand that there are legitimate reasons that you may not have a credit card. If this is the case, you are welcome to leave an HSA (Health Savings Account) or Flex Plan Card on file. You may also pay for the visit with cash or a personal check. However, we still require a form of payment on file.
Note: Exceptions to the above are subject to management approval.