Dear Muhammad Nadeem, thank you for sharing your feedback on our clinic and how we deal with people who haven't paid for services they were provided with. We work hard to support our patients, and understand that life can be busy and things can get missed sometimes. We really do understand. We have a very robust payment reminder process in place to manage patients who owe money for services or products. Firstly we email them with a secure payment link, so they can conveniently make payment at a time that suits them. Where payment isn't made within the month, a letter is posted to their home address detailing the amount owing and our payment process, as a gentle reminder. After a further 30 days, we pass the matter to our payments partner. We prefer our staff to focus on helping people getting better, not chase people who owe money. Our payment partner P&J/Kathy Fraser sends emails, text messages, makes phone calls and sends letters requesting payment. Only then, when someone continues to refuse to make payment for a service received, do we need to escalate the matter. We provide details to the court who send a request for payment using the same contact details we have used and our payments partner has used. We do not charge interest on outstanding amounts, and do not increase the amount owing, we simply ask for the amount agreed to be paid. The court does add a fee (around £35) to cover their involvement. In most cases this 'reminder' seems to do the trick. If payment is still outstanding after all of that, then debt management proceedings involving a court may be necessary to deal with the matter. The good news is that the majority of people do the right thing, value our staff and Doctors and the work they do in helping people get better, and promptly settle any outstanding amounts. I'm sure you understand that for those small number of people who don't do the right thing, and think it is appropriate to ignore requests for payment, or that they somehow don't need to pay for services provided, that the matter would require some form of escalation. Thank you again for sharing your feedback and thoughts on our process.
