The purpose of waiving and reducing fees is NOT to reduce fees for patients who are experiencing routine financial hardships in their lives.  Waiving/reducing fees is applicable in addition to normal circumstances that our patients experience on a daily basis and should be available to all patients regardless of payor source, including insured, uninsured, and full pay patients.

Health Centers are required to have board approved policies and procedures that include the specific circumstances when the health centers will waive or reduce fees or payments.  This procedure should be followed in the event a special circumstance occurs.  For example, if you had a health center in Los Angeles and during one of the devastating wildfires a patient lost all of their belongings, you may want to consider a waiver of fees for all patients at your center.  Your policy and procedure could also include events that only impact the individual; death of a family member, mental instability, etc.  

The health center is charged with defining what special circumstances are allowed. Examples are listed below, but it is up to the health center to determine what will be included.

• Death of a family member that affects household income
• Catastrophic medical diagnosis or emergency
• Legitimate dispute of services rendered (clinic error or service recovery)
• Mental instability
• Floods
• Wildfires
• Homelessness

It is also important that your policy is clearly defined so that circumstances for waivers are easily identified. 

In addition to the policy, the health center should have procedures in place to ensure that patients and staff understand the process for applying/receiving this discount. Steps that should be considered include:

• Requesting a Waiver 
• Approval Process 
• Implementation 

Lastly, it is important that our patients receive care even when there are extenuating circumstances in their lives, that is the REAL reason for the waiver policy!