Divide bad-debt write-offs by net patient revenue to get the bad debt rate — with benchmarks and the distinctions that keep the number honest.
What bad debt measures
Bad debt is collectible money that didn’t collect — patient balances and uncollected cost-shares written off after genuine collection effort. Divided by net patient revenue, it becomes the rate that grades front-end financial processes: eligibility, estimates, point-of-service collection, and payment plans. Enter the two figures and this calculator returns the rate with its benchmark reading.
How to use it
- Enter bad debt written off for the period.
- Enter net patient revenue for the same period.
- Read the rate against the benchmarks.
The formula
A worked example
$45,000 written off against $1.5M of net revenue is a 3% bad debt rate — in the typical 2–4% band, with under 2% the strong end. The trend line matters more as patient responsibility grows: high-deductible plans have shifted an ever-larger share of revenue to the hardest payer in healthcare — the patient — which is why bad debt rates drift up wherever point-of-service collection doesn’t improve to match.
Estimates only — payer contracts, plan documents, published fee schedules and the EOB are the source of truth, and nothing here is billing, legal or medical advice. The calculator runs entirely in your browser: no patient data is entered, transmitted or stored.