Covetrus®️ CarePlans Payment Collection Process

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the Covetrus®️ CarePlans payment collection process and timeline.

Process

Covetrus®️ CarePlans provides a “soft collection” service for our practices and partners (“customers”), free of charge. Revenue generated from missed payment fees directly fund and support the process and team needed to perform this service.

Soft collection is extremely beneficial to the practice since it relieves customers of the burden of contacting pet parents to follow-up on missed payments after the grace period and before payments turn 30 days past due. Pet parents benefit from the additional reminders and calls, allowing them an opportunity to rectify their past due balances and prevent plan suspension.

Soft collection begins in the second week of the payment life cycle, following all attempts to automatically recover a missed payment. Unrecovered payments are referred to the practice by the third week, giving plenty of time for the practice to contact plan owners and attempt to recover payments before plans become “past due” after 30 days and considered for further “hard collection” activities.

Hard collection (referral to a 3^rd party agency) is a practice responsibility, and practices must define their process and workflow to further collect upon past due CarePlans accounts, beyond the soft collection efforts performed by the Covetrus®️ CarePlans collection agents.

Flow Diagram

Details

When a scheduled monthly plan payment is attempted and not paid, Covetrus®️ CarePlans will track, retry, and follow-up on the “missed” payment, until the balance past due is fully recovered, or the payment “case” is handed to the practice for further follow-up (“referral”).

Plan holders (“pet parents”) are given a seven (7) day “grace period” while the CarePlans system automatically reattempts any missed payment over the course of seven days. A maximum of four attempts are made during this time. Plan holders and practices are notified via email after the initial and final failed attempts.

If all automated payment collection attempts fail, a “missed payment” fee is applied to the plan balance due, and a payment case is created and placed into the payment collections queue. CarePlans payment collection agents monitor the queue and handle items throughout each business day, until the queue is empty.

CarePlans payment collection agents will attempt to contact the plan holder up to three (3) times over the course of another seven (7) days. Each contact attempt is documented by the agent in the memo section of the plan in the CarePlans system.

If the agent can contact the plan holder and recover the entire past due balance on the plan, the payment case is closed. If the plan holder makes a payment online or at the practice, for the past due balance, the payment case is automatically closed.

If a plan holder cannot be reached, the plan holder cannot pay the entire past due balance, or the past due balance is unrecoverable for any other reason, the plan is “suspended” and the payment case is handed over (“referred”) to the practice for further follow-up.

The practice will be notified via email upon referral, and the payment case will appear on the “Payment Issue List”, under the Operations menu, until such time as the payment case is resolved, or the plan is cancelled.

Timeline

Day -3 (Email a Reminder)

• An email is sent to the plan holder to notify that a payment is going to be due in three (3) days

Day 1 (1st Payment Attempt on Due Date)

• Automatic monthly payment fails (attempt #1) on the scheduled debit date
• An email is sent to the plan holder and practice to notify of the failed attempt
• An automated voice call is made to the plan holder to notify of the failed attempt

Day 3 (1st Failed Payment Re-Attempt)

• The payment is reattempted (attempt #2)

Day 5 (2nd Failed Payment Re-Attempt)

• The payment is reattempted (attempt #3)

Day 7 (3rd Failed Payment Re-Attempt)

• The payment is reattempted (attempt #4 -- FINAL)
• An email is sent to the plan holder and practice to notify of the final failed attempt
• “Missed” payment fee is applied
• Payment “case” is created

Day 8 (Full Failure - Assess Fee - Begin "Soft" Collection)

• An automated voice call is made to the plan holder
• Payment collection agent makes first (1) contact attempt
• Attempt is documented in a memo on the plan in the CarePlans system
• If the past due balance is recovered, the payment case is cleared, and plan payments resume with the next scheduled automatic payment
• If unrecovered, an email is sent to the plan holder and the case is placed back into the queue for follow-up in two more (2) days

Day 10 (2nd "Soft" Collection Contact Attempt)

• Payment collection agent makes second (2) contact attempt
• Attempt is documented in a memo on the plan in the CarePlans system
• If the past due balance is recovered, the payment case is cleared, and plan payments resume with the next scheduled automatic payment
• If unrecovered, an email is sent to the plan holder and the case is placed back into the queue for follow-up in two more (2) days

Day 14 (3rd "Soft" Collection Contact)*

• Payment collection agent makes third (3) or final contact attempt
• Attempt is documented in a memo on the plan in the CarePlans system
• If the past due balance is recovered, the payment case is cleared, and plan payments resume with the next scheduled automatic payment
• If unrecovered, an email is sent to the plan holder and the practice, the payment case is “referred” to the practice, and the plan is “suspended”

* Two days added for “weekend”

Notes

If a pet parent requests additional time to pay, the CarePlans collection agents are authorized to extend a maximum “grace period” of seven (7) days. Requests for additional time to pay are documented via a memo on the plan in the CarePlans system and pet parents are referred to their practice to request an extension.

If a pet parent cannot pay the entire amount of the past due balance (including the missed payment fee) and a seven-day (7) extension will not help, the payment collection agent will immediately “refer” the payment case to the practice, and the CarePlans team will cease all further attempts to contact the pet parent for that payment case.

Suspended plans will continue to be invoiced, and the past due balance will continue to accrue additional monthly payments on the pet plan. No additional fees will be assessed on a suspended plan, and NO automatic payment collection attempts will be made while a plan is “suspended”.

Plans that remain suspended for three months with no activity (memo, payment, etc.) will be automatically cancelled by the CarePlans system.

If a plan is cancelled prior to paying any fees that are part of the past due balance, those fees will be passed to the practice or partner via the monthly CarePlans system invoice to the customer.

The practice or partner can view, and handle “referred” payment cases by navigating to the Operations menu and selecting “Payment Issue List”. The “YOUR Payment Issues” radio bubble should be selected to filter “in” only the payment cases that have been referred to the practice.