By Eric Dessner MD
Private practice pearls: How to search for unclaimed funds from the state comptroller.
As a solo medical practitioner, I just achieved a small victory in the never-ending struggle to receive proper compensation for my work from insurance companies. I feel like a 21st century “David” walking down a cobblestone street the into the sunset after defeating “Goliath” with my trusty sling-shot draped over my shoulder.
The reason being is that I recently received a check from the NY State comptroller’s office for abandon property that I made an effort to reclaim. In this case the “abandoned property” was a batch of insurance checks that were either sent to the wrong address or never cashed, which were eventually re-routed to the comptroller.
This is not something that you ever hear about in medical school. I have been in private practice for over 10 years without any knowledge that uncashed insurance checks were forwarded to the state, and that there’s a fairly straightforward process for recouping these funds.
I believe that I first stumbled across this information through a physician group on Facebook. I don’t recall exactly which group, but kudos to the author who suggested that, “once a year they visit their state’s abandon property website and conduct a search using their name or medical practice ID.”
Whether you’re an independent practitioner or part of a large group or hospital system, I encourage you to try and visit your state’s comptroller’s office search to see if you have unclaimed funds. It’s actually not that hard.
Or simply google “Unclaimed property + Whatever state you practice in” and the link you need will pop up immediately.
Here’s an example. I googled “unclaimed property NY” and here’s the first search result that came up:
https://ouf.osc.state.ny.us/ouf/?wicket-crypt=P5xPW0yon3I
This is the link I used to reclaim my funds.
Good luck and keep the faith. Please share any success stories you have at submissions@medmic.com
Eric Dessner is the founder and CEO of www.medmic.com
He can be reached at eric@medmic.com