Older physicians are more likely to drop patients after several attempts at payment, according to Medscape's "Young Physician Compensation Report 2023."
The report, which surveyed 10,011 participants across more than 29 specialties between October 2022 and January 2023, defined "young physicians" as those 40 and younger.
Seven percent of young physicians said they would drop the patient compared to 13% of older physicians. Meanwhile, older physicians were less inclined to develop payment plans for patients failing to pay their bills than their younger counterparts at 54% and 58%, respectively.
Here are the most common actions taken by young physicians when they have patients not paying their bills:
Continue to treat them as a patient and develop a payment plan: 58%
Write off the balance this time and continue their patient care: 15%
Write off the balance this time and continue their patient care, with plans to do so again when the balance grows: 12%
Drop them as a patient after making several efforts to get paid and send their bill to a collections agency: 10%
Drop them as a patient after making several efforts to get paid: 7%
Other: 17%