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amount would be delayed until a revised EOB was received. A
substantial percentage of the claims filed by petitioners with
Medicare and other insurance companies was rejected the first
time and had to be resubmitted.
Some patients who did not have any medical insurance
coverage or who could not afford their copayments were treated at
the clinics. Dr. Ishmael expected these patients to pay whatever
they could afford. The business office usually tried to work out
some sort of payment schedule, even if the payment would only
cover a small portion of the cost of treatment. No attempt was
made to charge only what a patient could afford or to write down
an account in expectation of what ultimately might be collected.
Eventually, if an account showed no activity for an extended
period of time because a patient had died, left the area, or
other circumstances indicated that the account was wholly
worthless, petitioners wrote off the entire account.
Neither petitioner had signs in its clinics that indicated
payments should be arranged before services were rendered.
Petitioners never charged interest or finance charges on patient
accounts. At least in part because of the patients' medical
conditions, petitioners did not use aggressive collection
practices.
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