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Finances are the life-blood of the successful medical practice. No matter how talented your physicians and support staff are, a financial department plagued by open-ended balances and unpaid bills cannot sustain a healthy practice. Often the problem is not that patients are unable to pay their bills, but that medical bills simply fall low on their priority list, says Jerry Bridge, founder and president of the Bridge Practice Management Group in San Diego. "Among the list of the top 25 household bills to be paid each month, the doctor’s bill is twenty-fourth-one notch above the lawyer’s bill," he says. "If [patients] can afford to pay the cable bill-which can be $100 or more-they can afford to pay their doctor."