Collecting fees for health care provided during outreach

[Guest guest]

Dear colleagues,

Hope we can put our heads together on this dilemma:

Some Community Health Centers provide primary health care to farmworkers within the workers' homes, or using a mobile unit. Care may be given by physicians, nurse practitioners or physician assistants. The question is, how do we ask for payment in that setting? If in a clinic, the patient checks out and is asked to pay the sliding fee amount. In the patients home, or parked by their house, however, it just doesn't feel right to ask for money. Providers and outreach workers are typically not comfortable asking for payment, and there is no check-out desk. An additional concern is that if these mobile units go around with a money box, they could become targets for crime. Has anyone found a reasonable way to seek payment within this model of care?

Many thanks, Dawn

Dawn Burtt, RN, MPH Migrant Health Coordinator for Mid-Atlantic States North Carolina Primary Health Care Association 875 Walnut Street, Suite 150 Cary, NC 27511 Voice (919) 297-0014 Fax (919) 469-5701 Cellular (919) 801-5560 e-mail: burttd@...