Will That Be Cash, Check Or Charge?

At work, I clicked on the computer screen to look up some lab results and this paragraph greeted me:

DON'T FORGET TO ESTABLISH YOUR "COLLECTION CONNECTION"... EYE CONTACT, SMILE, ADDRESS YOUR PATIENT BY NAME AND OFFER OPTIONS SUCH AS CASH, CHECK OR CHARGE! REMEMBER...EVERY PATIENT HAS THE RIGHT TO PAY FOR THEIR SEVICES AND YOU HAVE THE POWER AND ACCOUNTABILITY TO HELP THEM DO SO WITH CONFIDENCE AND COMPASSION."

Every patient has the right to pay? Oh yeah, we have patients all day long demanding the right to pay their hospital bill. We have to fight the patients off with a stick while they plead to let us pay their bill. Of course when people fall and break their hip, the first they do before calling the paramedics is to get together cash, checks or credit cards so that they can exercise their right to pay the bill.

It sounds like they're asking nurses to be cashiers or bill collectors. Whoever wrote this does not know what nurses do. I've never discussed money with a patient and I never will.

There are some people whose job it is to visit every patient each day and collect their copay. Some people are frightened by this. They don't have access to money while in the hospital and yet they're being asked to pay. Some people are afraid that we may dump then on the sidewalk if they don't come up with the money and so they start begging family members to pay for them. It's all quite sad and the nurses spend a lot of time trying to calm people down. Other people feel that since they're paying such a large copay that they want to get their money's worth and begin acting like they're staying at the Hyatt, although I'm pretty sure that the Hyatt doesn't do bedpans.