Question: Early in every calendar year our accounts receivable tend to build up due to patients having to pay out of pocket before annual deductibles and co-pays reach their maximums. This typically results in a corresponding increase in past-due accounts and
collection headaches. What besides sending notice after notice to the patient’s home address and calling their home and cell numbers can we do to collect? We have employer information. Can we send collection notices to a patient at their place of employment? Can we call or email them at their place of employment demanding payment?
Answer: Debt collection practices are regulated by both state and federal law. These laws do allow a dental practice to collect its own debts arising from the provision of services to its own patients if the practice complies with the law’s requirements.
Your primary concern should be not violating MCL § 445.251 et seq. This Michigan statute restricts the practices you might use in the collection of a patient’s debt. These statutes broadly define the entities covered and prohibit these creditors from engaging in certain conduct to collect debt. A dental practice collecting debts arising from the provision of services to its patients would be a type of creditor subject to this Michigan law.
The law prohibits many practices that it is hoped would not be engaged in by dentists (such as using forms or instruments that give the appearance of judicial process, using seals or printed forms of a government agency or instrumentality, otherwise inducing the belief that you have judicial or other official sanction, making inaccurate, misleading, untrue, deceptive, etc., statements or claims, communicating with a patient without accurately disclosing your identity, and so on).
Also restricted is your ability to contact a patient at his or her place of employment. First, you are prohibited from communicating any information relating to the patient’s debt to the employer or any agent (which includes the patient’s fellow employees) of the employer. You may not disclose any specific information regarding the patient’s past due account to the patient’s employer, or the patient’s fellow employees. You must also ensure that your contacts with the patient’s employer do not raise suspicions that the employee is the subject of your debt collection activities. When contacting a patient’s employer in connection with the collection of a debt you must exercise the utmost caution to ensure that your contacts are discreet and targeted solely at the patient. You should not leave messages with the employer that indicate a past-due balance is owed and/or that if it is not paid what your next steps will be. The same is true of emails, which you do not know for certain are only going to be viewed by the patient.
This Michigan law also prohibits the use of harassing, oppressive, or abusive methods to collect a debt. This includes calling a debtor either repeatedly, at unusual times, or at places which are known to inconvenience the debtor, or between the hours of 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. without the debtor’s permission. Pursuant to these restrictions, any mailings or phone calls to a debtor’s workplace must be civil in tone, and not so frequent as to constitute harassment. If the patient informs you that it is inconvenient for him or her to receive calls at work, you should thereafter refrain from this practice.
This article originally appeared in the February 2025 edition of the Journal of the Michigan Dental Association.
