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point of service collection

pos_coll_amt
finance·Updated Jun 13, 2026

Definition

ISO-11179 Definition

The dollar amount of patient financial obligations collected by healthcare organizations at the time of service delivery, before the patient leaves the clinical setting. Point-of-service collection represents the most effective and lowest-cost method of collecting patient balances — research consistently demonstrates that collection rates decline sharply as time passes after the date of service, with point-of-service collection rates of 50 to 70 percent compared to post-service collection rates of 20 to 35 percent for the same balance type. Best practice revenue cycle organizations collect copays, prior-visit balances, and estimated patient responsibility amounts at registration and checkout.

Healthcare data teams track pos_coll_amt by service type, facility, and registration staff to measure point-of-service collection performance, benchmark against industry standards, calculate the revenue impact of improving collection rates at the point of service, and evaluate the effectiveness of staff training and scripting programs designed to increase patient payment at time of service.

Standard Abbreviation

pos_coll_amt

Category

finance

Production DDL — FACT_CLAIM_TRANSACTION

FACT_CLAIM_TRANSACTION.sql
CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE FACT_CLAIM_TRANSACTION (
    clm_txn_key     INTEGER        NOT NULL  -- surrogate key,
    clm_id          VARCHAR(50)    NOT NULL  -- claim identifier,
    mbr_key         INTEGER        NOT NULL  -- FK to DIM_MEMBER,
    prvdr_key       INTEGER        NOT NULL  -- FK to DIM_PROVIDER,
    clm_typ_cd      VARCHAR(10)              -- claim type code,
    tot_chrg_amt    DECIMAL(18,2)            -- total charged amount,
    tot_alwd_amt    DECIMAL(18,2)            -- total allowed amount,
    tot_pd_amt      DECIMAL(18,2)            -- total paid amount,
    cntrct_adj_amt  DECIMAL(18,2)            -- contractual adjustment,
    denial_ind      CHAR(1)                  -- denial indicator,
    denial_rsn_cd   VARCHAR(10)              -- denial reason code,
    prior_auth_nbr  VARCHAR(30)              -- authorization number,
    clm_lag_days    SMALLINT                 -- claim lag days,
    days_ar         SMALLINT                 -- days in AR,
    load_dt         TIMESTAMP_NTZ  NOT NULL  -- load timestamp
);

Standard Snowflake DDL for the canonical finance table. Convert to BigQuery or Databricks →

Why This Term Matters

Healthcare data terminology is foundational for any data engineer working in this industry. Precise understanding of standard terms enables accurate schema design, reduces downstream data quality issues, and ensures pipelines meet the regulatory and interoperability requirements imposed by HIPAA, HL7 FHIR, and CMS reporting frameworks. Without this foundation, even technically well-built pipelines produce data that fails validation when it reaches payers or regulators.

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