Are missed appointments bad debts?

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Obviously, this thread applies to self employed practitioners. Just wondering if any of you claim missed appointments as a bad debt on your tax returns, Comments welcome, thank you, BM.

 

Hi Billy

I'm not entirely sure, but I think you can claim them as bad debts if you have invoiced the patient for a failed appointment fee and they don't pay the invoice. I would be (pleasantly) surprised if you could claim missed appointments without an unpaid invoice.

best wishes

Debbie

 

I charge people who don't attend without 24 hrs notice (or who are obviously ill). If they don't pay then I won't see them again. Simple as that. I actually have very few of those (less than 5 year) so couldn't be bothered to try and claim even if I was able to do so.

Nick

 

Spoke to my accountant about this a few years ago, and was told it could not be claimed as bad debt. Maybe a new/or another accountant will say something different!

 

Are broken appointments bad debts? I don't know - probably different tax rules apply in different jurisdictions. What broken appointments are - discourteous and a waste of your time, with an obvious financial penalty if you operate an effective appointment system. If there is a genuine reason for missing an appointment - accident, bereavement,etc - well and good, but few people are far away from a telephone these days to let you know that they can't attend. Forgetting an appointment, getting the day or time wrong - how difficult is it to make and keep an appointment ? - those are reasons, not excuses. I work by appointment only, in private practice mainly - I pay patients the compliment of not wasting their time by keeping them waiting - I expect the same in return. I think that were I to charge a broken appointment fee, 90% would not pay it, so my policy is not to see them again on the assumption that they need me more than I need them. It is occurring with increasing frequency - hospital OPD appointments here in the Republic of Ireland are regularly showing a 20% plus non-attendance rate - this might be bearable in a public health setting where an appointment time is advisory only - you wait your turn to be treated, and the hospital will waste the patient's time rather than the other way. I believe this is an increasing problem in contemporary life and how an individual practitioner deals with the situation is up to each individual practitioner and the particular circumstance applying.

 

can't help thinking you are a little harsh.

putting aside illness etc, the main reason my pts miss appointments is because they forget, a great deal of them simply can't remember.

I contact all pts the day before, it takes 30 seconds and with the right contract on the phones ,there is no charge and very little of your time ( or receptionist).

by doing this every day I have very few DNA.

I even have two pts who we contact again the next morning as they have small retention of memory.

Most of my pts who do forget are mortified and get very upset thay have forgotten ( for me as well as themselves) they often offer to pay but I have never accepted.

 

No of course not!
Think about it if you wanted to claim these missed appointments as bad debts then you would have to include the appointment fee (that wasn't paid) in your income account sheet ( like a virtual payment) and then the missed appointment fee is entered as a loss (virtual bad debt) in your outgoings sheet. That would be a waste of time don't you think.


So if you had a fee paid by cheque and that is entered into your income accounts and then the cheque bounces and is left unpaid (as a bad debt) then this must be entered as a loss in the outgoings accounts so that you don't pay tax on cash you never had.

In the former case you won't pay tax on cash you never had in the first place because it wasn't recorded as part of your income - so nothing lost.

Dave Smith

 

Good answer David. Here in the USA, We simply pay taxes on our net profit (Gross profit minus expenses). Our Net profit will be less if we had a lot of missed appointments so therefore our taxes will also be less.

If your office has above average missed appointments then you may need a better recall system or find out if there are other problems underlying the issue. Yes, People do forget, something else comes up, they get sick, yada, yada, yada. This is why many practitioners will add additional patients to their schedule and yes, sometimes it can get a bit hectic but time is money and bills have to be paid.

Steven