BURGAW — Health and Human Services Director Carolyn Moser has requested approval to write off bad debt for the Health Department accrued in 2017 for the amount of $28,243.
The Board of County Commissioners will review Moser’s request at its upcoming meeting Tuesday evening.
Moser said department policy dictates that billing staff review all patient accounts annually, and if a patient has not visited the health clinic in the past calendar year and has an outstanding balance, “it shall be considered as a bad debt and uncollectable.”
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“Any new activity by the patient will reactivate the file and additional attempts will be made to collect the debt,” Moser said in her request for the board’s approval. “Debt written off becomes active if the patient returns to care.”
The department’s uncollected debt in 2017 includes $16,494 from its health clinic, $10,552 from its dental clinic, and $1,196 from its mobile dental clinic. These figures amount to less than 1 percent of revenues collected for the health and mobile dental clinics and less than 3 percent for the dental clinic.
