How to Collect a Doctor Bill

Chapter VI Limitations

The following table gives the time an account or instrument of writing, (note, judgment, etc.) will survive before becoming “out-lawed” by the statutes of limitations in the several states.

	Open account		Note		Judgment
	years		years		years
Alabama	3		6		20
Alaska			6		10
Arizona	3
Arkansas	3				10
California	4		4		5
Colorado	6		6		6
Connecticut	6		17	1
Delaware	3		6
Florida	3		5		20
Georgia	10		6		7
Hawaii	6		6		20
Idaho	4		5		6
Illinois	5		10		10	2
Indiana	6		10		20
Iowa	5		10		20
Kansas	3		5		5	3
Kentucky	5		5		15
Louisiana	3		5		10
Massachusetts	6		20		20
Michigan	6				10
Minnesota	6		6		10
Mississippi	3		6		7
Missouri					10
Montana					6
Nebraska	4		5
Nevada	3		4		6
New Hampshire					20
New Jersey					20
New Mexico	4		6		7
New York			10		20
North Carolina	3		3		10
North Dakota	6		6
Ohio	6		6		15
Oklahoma	3		5
Oregon	6		6		10
Pennsylvania	6		6		20	4
Rhode Island	6		20		20
South Carolina	6		6		20
South Dakota	6		6		20	5
Tennessee	6				10	6
Texas	2		4		10
Utah	4		6		8
Vermont
Virginia	2		5		10
Washington	6				6
West Virginia	5		5		10
Wisconsin	6		10		20
British Columbia7
Manitoba	6				10
Wyoming	8		5		10
New Brunswick	6		6		20
Nova Scotia	6				20
Ontario			6		10
Quebec	5	8	5
Mexico	1		3

This table is as near complete as we are able to make it at this time. The laws are changed frequently. This is accurate enough to enable any physician to look over his books and find what per cent. of his accounts have outlawed by his failure to enforce payment.

Remember that a payment, however small it may be, will revive an account, even after it has become outlawed. Hence the advisability of getting small payments at every opportunity. These payments should be less than one year apart, as some States do not consider payments made over one year apart.

Under the Oklahoma law a foreign judgment is limited to one year. In West Virginia a foreign judgment against a person who has been a resident of the State for ten years is barred.

A similar clause to the following, taken from the laws of the State of Washington, is incorporated in the acts of nearly all States, and may be considered as a general rule:

“In an action brought to recover a balance due upon a mutual, open and current account, where there have been reciprocal demands, the cause of action shall be deemed to have accrued from the time of the last item of the account proved on either side, but when more than one year shall have intervened between any of a series of items, they are not to be deemed such an account.”

Thus, if you do practice for a person, and a year elapses and you again attend him, you cannot combine the two as one account, and enforce collection by law.

Notes

1 Promissory note not negotiable.

2 Justice Court. Court of Record, 20 years.

3 Judgment may be kept alive by issuing execution every five years.

4 May be revived by proof of non-payment.

5 If judgment is from any other state, 10 years.

6 “Where the statute of limitations of another State or government has created a bar to an action upon a cause accruing therein, while the party to be charged was a resident in such State or under such government, the bar is equally effectual in this State.” (Code (M. & V.) Sec. 3481.)

7 “All actions for debt upon any recognizance, shall be commenced within twenty years after the cause of action arose.”

8 “Surgeon’s, physician’s and dentist’s accounts dating from the time the services or medicine is supplied.”