Corporate and contract clients: price lists, credit limits and monthly statements

A contract client is a credit customer

Companies, schools, clubs, embassies and charities that send people to the clinic and pay later are not insurance companies. They have no claims system, no standard codes and no fixed process. They have a contract, a contact person in HR or finance, and a payment cycle of their own.

From the day you sign, the clinic is lending. Each visit by an employee is a small loan that will be repaid in 30, 60 or 90 days. Everything that follows comes from treating it that way: who is allowed to borrow, how much, on what proof, and what happens when repayment is late.

What the contract has to say

A short agreement that answers eight questions prevents most later disputes:

• Who is covered: employees only, or dependants too, and how they are identified
• What is covered: consultations only, or tests, procedures and medication
• The price: a named price list or a fixed discount on the cash list, and what happens when your prices change
• What needs approval: a referral letter for every visit, or only above an amount
• What the patient pays at the desk, if anything
• When the statement is sent and when it is due
• The credit limit: the maximum the company may owe at one time
• Who signs off disputes, and within how many days of the statement

Ask for the list of covered people at signing and a named person who updates it. An employee who left the company three months ago and still receives treatment on its account is the most common dispute of all.

The check at reception

The money is protected or lost at check-in. Reception needs a routine that takes one minute:

1. Find the patient and confirm they are linked to the company account.
2. Check the ID against the covered list, or check the referral letter if the contract requires one.
3. See what this contract covers and what the patient pays today.
4. After the visit, have the patient sign the visit slip or confirm on a screen.

The signature matters. When the company's finance department questions a visit two months later, the signed slip ends the conversation.

If the contract requires a referral letter and the patient has none, reception needs a clear instruction. The usual choice is that the patient pays cash and claims from their employer, or that the clinic calls the HR contact before treatment. Do not treat first and sort it out later.

One visit, two invoices

A single visit often splits. The company pays for the consultation, the patient pays for a cosmetic add-on or the uncovered share. The system should produce the split from the contract rules, so reception does not calculate it by hand.

In Saudi Arabia the invoice issued to a company is a standard tax invoice, which needs the buyer's VAT number and goes through clearance with ZATCA. Collect the company's tax details when the account is opened, not when the first statement is rejected.

The monthly statement

Send the statement on the same date every month. Three working days after month end is a reasonable target. It should list, for each visit: the date, the employee's name and ID, the doctor, the services, the price, and the reference of the signed slip or referral letter. Attach the supporting documents the contract asks for.

A statement that arrives late or incomplete gives the company's accounts department a reason to delay the whole payment. A clean statement on a fixed date trains the client to pay on a fixed date.

When payment arrives, allocate it to specific invoices. A lump sum recorded against "the account" makes it impossible to see which visits are still unpaid and which are in dispute.

Credit limits and ageing

Every account needs two controls.

A credit limit. Set it at roughly the value of two months of normal usage. When the balance reaches the limit, reception sees a warning and the manager calls the company before more visits are added.

An ageing view. Each week, look at what each company owes in bands: current, 30 to 60 days, 60 to 90 days, and over 90. Assign one person to call every account that has anything over 60 days.

Write a stop rule into the contract: if the account is more than a stated number of days overdue, new visits are on a cash basis until it is settled. Enforcing it once is usually enough.

Work out what the discount really leaves

A 20% discount paid in 90 days costs more than a 20% discount paid at the desk. Three things reduce the margin:

• The discount itself
• The cost of waiting three months for money you have already spent on salaries and supplies
• The amounts that are disputed and never collected

Before agreeing a price list, take the ten services the company will use most and calculate what each leaves after the doctor's share and consumables at the contract price. If a service leaves almost nothing, exclude it from the discount or price it separately. Volume does not help when each visit earns nothing.

Then review each contract after six months on three numbers: revenue, average days to payment and the share of invoices disputed. Some contracts deserve better terms. Others should be repriced or ended.

Products that companies buy

Beyond sick visits, companies buy packaged services that are easy to deliver well:

• Pre-employment medical checks, priced per person with a fixed list of tests
• Annual check-up packages for staff
• Vaccination days at the company's premises
• Occupational health checks where regulations require them

These are scheduled in blocks, paid by one customer and predictable. One caution applies to all of them. The employer is entitled to the result the contract specifies, usually whether the person is fit for work. The clinical details belong to the patient. Get the employee's written consent for exactly what will be shared, and send nothing more.

Start this week

1. List every organisation that currently owes the clinic money, with the balance and the age of the oldest invoice.
2. For each one, find the written agreement. Where none exists, write the eight points and send them for signature.
3. Set a credit limit per account and name the person who calls when it is reached.
4. Fix the statement date and send this month's statements on it.
5. Take your largest contract and calculate what its five most used services leave at the contract price.

Medicolize is clinic management software for clinics and medical centres in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Request a demo to see it on your own clinic's cases.