patient payment

The transition from volume-based to value-based care will have a monumental impact on what it means to be competitive in healthcare. There’s a growing interest in the convenience of digital communication, patient payment plans, and more options for paying healthcare bills online with an increasing financial responsibility falling on patients' shoulders.

Why Offer Patient Payment Plans?

Patient expectations have shifted greatly towards the convenience and affordability of online payment plans. Many practices offer options for payment plans which increase the percentage of upfront payments and allow patients who can’t afford paying the full bill all at once greater control over their monthly healthcare costs. Furthermore, patients are more loyal towards practices with more convenient services like payment plans.

Options for Online Patient Payments

In a 2016 InstaMed report, research found 68% of consumers prefer electronic payment methods for paying medical bills, while 80% prefer to pay their health plan premiums online. Popular online patient payment options include:

• Online Patient Portal - signing up via credit card or ACH where money is auto-drafted from a patient's account in smaller payments over time
• Patient Financing - often provided through a bank or money lender
• Interest-free Payment Plans - where a hospital will work with a vendor to offer 0-interest credit lines and a set timeframe in which patients may pay their medical bill.

The concept of omni-channel payments has been around for several years now. Many large retailers pioneered the concept to develop conveniences we use today in our everyday lives, i.e. buy-online and return in-store.

The concept is simple: provide consumers with multiple ways to pay for a product or service while simultaneously connecting that transaction seamlessly back to the consumer’s record for full historical record. An omni-channel experience:

• Allows the business to make edits (void, credit, refund, etc.) to that transaction regardless of the payment method
• Provides the consumer with an up-to-date view of their payments in one location
• Consolidates the entire payments experience

This concept has become a necessary business strategy for healthcare providers.  If we rewind the clock back 5-10 years ago, the patient payments experience was a necessary evil for most providers. Most of the reimbursement was provided by the insurance company and was more of a guaranteed revenue stream. In recent years, patients have become a more integral part to the reimbursement process. With the shifts to high deductible health plans, patients are now more responsible for the cost of care. When you combine that with the fact that 40% of consumers are unable to pay a $400 bill, the burden of collection falls to the provider.²

Curious about how to enhance your patient payments process?

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Savvy providers have differentiated themselves by creating a smooth patient payment collection process. In doing so, they’ve also turned patient payments from a financial risk to a competitive advantage. The payments process is an extension of the patient experience. The billing process is the last 10-15% of the interaction with a patient. A broken/disjointed payments experience can turn excellent care into frustration. In an environment where 69% of families with children have had to make financial sacrifices to cope with medical expenses¹, creating a solid experience is a strategic imperative.

Here are five strategies successful practices use to enhance their position:

1. They integrate solutions with their billing platform. The billing platform is the central nervous system of your business operations. To create a true omni-channel strategy, every payment modality needs to integrate into your billing suite.
2. They provide multiple ways for patients to pay. It is not enough to only take payments at the front desk. Providing them with tools like an online portal allows patients to pay at their convenience.
3. They leverage one solution among all specialties. This simplifies reconciliation and allows staff members to focus on more impactful tasks.
4. They automate patient payments. Recurring payment plans are a powerful tool to increase patient collections and retention.
5. They don’t forget about security. As healthcare organizations we talk about patient privacy constantly. It is important that we extend that same rigor into the payments process. Protecting cardholder data should be a core pillar of a revenue cycle management strategy.

ImaginePay^TM is an all-in-one patient payments solution designed to improve staff efficiency, allow your organization to get paid faster, and drive patient satisfaction.

References:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/02/26/american-families-forced-to-rely-on-credit-cards/111364698/

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-cant-handle-a-400-unexpected-expense.html

An ImagineSoftware employee recounts her experience with surprise billing, along with the tools that would have made paying her doctor easier and more convenient.

I’m walking out of my doctor’s office after my final round of vaccinations. I’m traveling to South America for vacation in a few weeks and couldn’t be more excited! I felt more prepared than ever to leave the country for the first time. What I wasn’t prepared for was what awaited me at the administration desk afterwards.

The woman at the front desk greeted me with a warm smile and said, “Your total today is $450. How would you like to pay?” I thought my jaw was going to unhinge itself, I couldn’t drop it any farther. After a not-so-quick recovery, I asked, “I’m sorry, how is that possible? Can you check again? I thought my insurance covered my vaccinations.” I was sure of it, I had awesome health coverage. The noise her nails made as they rapidly clicked on her keyboard gave me instant anxiety. “Well, it looks like you haven’t paid for your initial consultation with the doctor yet, and not all of your vaccinations were covered, just a few.” I was reeling. I couldn’t recall anything in the mountain of paperwork I had filled out about a consultation cost or only some of my vaccinations being covered. I reluctantly handed over my debit card and left the doctor’s office with my arms AND my wallet hurting.

Surprise billing!

$450 may seem like a drop in the bucket to some, but not for me. As a 25-year-old woman with graduate student loans who recently opened up a Roth IRA because she’s trying to be financially responsible, those type of surprises are NOT okay. I couldn’t believe that cost wasn’t communicated to me upfront when I walked in for my first round of vaccinations. The money I had set aside for food and hotels during my trip now had to be spent on my doctor’s visit.

How to determine patient responsibility

The sooner, the better. As a patient, I want to know immediately how much my visit will cost. Explain your financial policies right away, including what payments are expected at time of service. Insurance verification should be completed upfront as well. It will reduce your time spent chasing down my insurance company or sending me multiple billing statements if I can’t pay upfront. All I really want as a patient is for you to be transparent. That means also training your office staff to make sure they can correctly answer questions about pricing over the phone and in person. Include a concise, written description of patient responsibility for making copayments at time of service and how you invoice coinsurance and deductibles.

Imagine a future where patients are equal partners in managing their healthcare costs.

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I pay for everything online, why should my medical bills be different?

My rent, my clothes, my student loans… I could go on forever. Almost everything is paid online. Online bill pay – like PayPal and Venmo – is a beautiful thing. It’s convenient, secure, and I’m more likely to pay right away if it can be done from my phone or laptop. A few months ago, I received a mailed invoice from my doctor that I completely forgot about. It was three days from going to collections when I realized I needed to call and pay. Let’s be honest here, I have a lot going on from day to day, it was really easy to forget about a piece of paper that was mailed to me. When I finally called to make the payment, I was put on hold for twenty-minutes before an office member could speak with me and let me pay my bill. It’s not exactly what I’d consider an easy way to pay. Offering online bill pay has a ton of benefits for both you and your patients.

For you:

• Receive payments faster and more frequently. 
• Reduce the amount of time your staff follows up with late payers. 
• Reduce the volume of payment-related calls to your office. 
• Increase patient satisfaction - there's a much higher likelihood of me staying with your practice in the long-term and suggesting your services to my family and friends. Word-of-mouth happens to be one of the most influential ways for you to gain new patients!

For your patients:

• We won't have to write and mail checks or abide by practice office hours to pay over the phone, it's instant!
• We feel more in control - it feels good to pay a bill from anywhere on my own time.
• We will feel much more connected to you. Giving us that option lets us know that you care about convenience and efficiency, and that speaks volumes.

It's a struggle for many patients to pay their medical bills immediately.

If I had been unemployed, there’s no way I would have been able to afford a $450 bill upfront. On the other hand, when you write off past-due balances as losses, you’re going to severely hurt your practice’s financial health in the long-run. You should try to collect on every dollar you’re entitled to, and a great alternative is offering a patient payment plan. Giving us the ability to flexibly pay over time can make a huge difference in helping us fulfill our financial responsibilities, and make your practice more money. There are a ton of benefits to these plans as well:

• Since we're opting into the plan instead of being forced to pay the entire bill upfront, we're much more likely to pay for it.
• According to the Medical Management Association (MGMA), practices that have implemented payment plans reported higher levels of patient satisfaction! 
• There's much more opportunity for you to progress financially. Even if some of your patients' payments aren't coming through at the time of service, a payment plan will slowly but surely bring them in instead of you writing them off as bad debt. 

When you work proactively to provide your patients the best billing experience, you’ll gain loyal patients and experience better collection results. It’s a clear win!

Everyone makes them. We're only human. But learning from our mistakes, and the mistakes of others, is what makes us successful. It is the same with accepting and processing card payments. Learning to avoid common mistakes can add up to big savings. Here are a few of the most common medical payment processing mistakes healthcare practices and other businesses make, and how to avoid them:

Not asking your processor to help you find the best interchange rates.

Running a medical office takes a lot of time and energy. The last thing you want to do is keep up with all the requirements from the card brands on interchange qualifications. If you are consistently seeing mid-qualified or non-qualified transactions, your processor can help you discover why your transactions are not qualifying for the best rates. Sometimes simple changes can make a big difference, such as ensuring transactions are batched out within established timeframes, making sure POS devices and software are properly encoding transactions, or taking advantage of special programs.

If you don't know, ask. Your payment processor should be able to evaluate your situation and offer money-saving suggestions.

Data Media Associates (DMA), ImagineSoftware Client Conference 2021 Platinum Sponsor, focuses on the patient experience alongside ImagineSoftware, leveraging a combined solution. DMA wants you to know how ImagineSoftware’s leader in patient statements in medical billing and payment solutions is transforming the industry once again!

DMA’s President, Cleve Shultz, joined ImagineSoftware’s Revenue Cycle Management panel discussion during their annual user conference.

Fast and Automated Medical Billing E-Statement

Getting paid within hours of transmitting your file is now possible with automated medical billing and electronic patient statements. Cleve weighed in on patient communication saying, “[Patients] are expecting faster, more tech-based services, free-flowing processes. The [healthcare] industry is meeting those expectations better and better now, leveraging speed and technology.”

DMA’s commitment to designing, developing, and deploying better, faster, more efficient solutions for ImagineSoftware team members continues with the launch of two exciting products. In addition to patient statements, DMA’s enhanced e-delivery solution is a dynamic hybrid delivery channel utilizing a calculated rotation of email, text and paper correspondence that communicates with your patients on platforms where they spend their time. And our new pay-by-phone solution that simplifies the payment process for you and your patients. Couple these transformative new products with DMA’s existing solutions and you will maximize patient engagement, accelerate response rates and drive patient payments all at a lower cost to you.

Patient-Friendly Billing Statement Examples

In the ever-evolving healthcare industry, the focus must remain on the patient to achieve success. Leveraging technology is the only way to stay current. Below is an example of how DMA and ImagineSoftware partner to create a faster, intuitive, and seamless payment experience. Integrated mobile payment portal means patients no longer have to pay by phone or check. However if they prefer doing so, instructions for paying by phone or mail are listed at the top of each patient statement, along with total payment amount due and an itemized list of all charged included in the bill.

DMA remains on the forefront of patient engagement evolution and plans to continue to transform patient statement delivery for ImagineSoftware clients and beyond.

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It’s time to say goodbye to fee-for-service models of patient care! The healthcare world is taking a giant leap towards value-based care, and with it, the way medical practices are paid for their work. The days of quantity over quality are coming to an end. No longer will practices be reimbursed by how many patients they encounter, despite health outcomes or costs associated. Now, providers must shift focus to engaging patients in their care. Below are some tips on how to improve patient engagement in healthcare, along with the top capabilities to look for in your next patient engagement software.

Patient Engagement Definitions

Patient engagement is a term often used to describe a strategy for promoting positive patient behavior through a more active means of managing one’s health. Similarly, the term, “triple aim,” describes patients taking a more active role in their healthcare in partnership with a provider for improving outcomes, providing better patient care, and lowering costs. 

In a study by NORC at the University of Chicago, 57% of patients were surprised by a medical bill that they thought would be covered by their payer. Due to the complexity of the healthcare system, patients often lack a complete understanding of the care they receive, not knowing all the contributing factors in the cost of care. As a result, those that receive care are often taken aback by the final medical bill they receive, leading to additional time and resources the medical practice must dedicate to helping patients understand their financial responsibility.

For most, the decision on what care they receive depends entirely on the associated costs. For example, a patient with knee pain may opt in for a knee replacement and several months of rehabilitation despite the related cost. Other patients elect to address the issue with a less costly option like diet and weight loss. However, a factor that often leads patients to ignore cost is the perception of the quality of the care when compared to a less expensive alternative. This is where patient engagement comes in.

Strategies for How to Improve Patient Engagement in Healthcare

In a 2018 Deloitte consumer engagement survey, 58% of patients felt that doctors should explain treatment costs with them before decisions on treatment are made. For a patient to be truly engaged, they must first receive the necessary information to make an informed decision. This information includes a full cost estimate of the procedure in relation to the care they will receive. At the same time, healthcare organizations must have patient engagement strategies in place in the form of processes and/or software to assess which services are within a patient’s financial means:

• Receive the necessary pre-authorization from payers.
• Price transparency of patient responsible charge
• Coverage discovery and alternative payment methods, as needed
• Tools and payment plans for patients to more easily manage their financial responsibility.

Imagine a future in which consumers are empowered with more options for managing their healthcare costs.
LEARN ABOUT PATIENT PAYMENT SOLUTIONS

Benefits of Patient Engagement

It is ultimately the patient’s choice as to what care they receive. When searching for a new healthcare provider, patients are most interested in coverage, cost and convenience. As a healthcare provider, it’s your job to make it easy to find out if procedures are covered by their insurance. Be transparent about costs. Finally, provide an easy method for patients to cover the costs of their elected procedure.

Patient engagement creates the opportunity for more coordinated care between physicians, clinicians, and their patients. Remote care and personalized scheduling allow patients with chronic conditions to be monitored more closely. This way, both parties are interacting in a meaningful way and the patient is also saving time in preparation for future encounters.

For providers, you’re saving yourselves additional administrative burden by enabling patients to manage their own financial responsibility outside of business hours. With the right tools, payment scheduling, communication and ordering are automated, creating sleeker daily operations. Thus, administrators and staff have more time to dedicate towards high-priority tasks.

When engaged, patients are empowered to take the reins on the care they receive, making it easier for patients to be involved in their own care, improving outcomes, and ultimately forming long-term relationships. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about – building long-term relationships with your patients.

Top Patient Engagement Software Capabilities

More providers are searching for solutions to meet the needs of their patients while increasing workflow efficiency and meeting health quality measures. To that ends, here are a few capabilities to consider when evaluating patient engagement software:

• Streamline workflow to assess eligibility and prior authorization - The American Medical Association contends prior authorization can create significant barriers by delaying the start or continuation of necessary treatment. One solution includes the use of electronic transfers to quickly submit required authorization materials, reducing administrative burden and deliver treatment to patients faster.
• A way to estimate patient responsibility - 46% of younger patients state they would be in a better position to handle the financial responsibility of healthcare if they received a cost estimate at the point-of-service. A patient responsibility estimator informs patients of their responsibility and educates them on any hidden costs associated with a procedure.
• An automated process for discovering unknown coverage - Every dollar discovered before a procedure is one providers aren’t spending time and resources to collect in the back-end. ImagineDiscovery^TM Identifies payers early in the revenue cycle to reduce bad debt and improve patient satisfaction.
• A portal for collecting online payments - ImaginePay^TM is a secure and mobile-friendly payment portal for patients to make medical payments online. The system can be set up for manual payments every month or for payments to be automatically drafted from a patient’s account.

Online patient payment portal with no-interest payment plans

All-in-one patient engagement solution. Designed to streamline the patient experience.

It’s a challenge that gets more complex every year—finding a cost-effective way to collect from patients who are either true self pay, or pay after insurance has been applied. The increasing cost of health insurance has resulted in the proliferation of high-deductible plans as an option to lower premiums. This has resulted in increased patient responsibility which has ballooned the least efficient financial class. Fortunately, there’s more technology than ever to help address the situation.

While there will always be true self-pay patients, we’ve tried to accommodate patients that fall outside this category with separate fee schedules, cash discounts, and payment plans. There is also a growing population of “may as well be self-pay” patients who owe money after their insurance has taken their discount. These clients have larger balances due to high-deductible insurance plans. If your practice uses ImagineBilling^TM, there is a potential gold mine in your patient tickler. Here are some tips to put your practice on a healthier financial future:

There is an obvious need in imaging centers for accurate patient responsibility estimations that you can collect at the time of service. It’s a fine balance—you want to collect as much as possible without creating a credit balance problem on the other side. You have a few options:

1. Calls/website visits to the patient’s insurance plan to determine how much they may owe at the time of service
2. 3rd party solutions that do the work for you of determining how much patients own
3. ImagineSoftware's Patient Responsibility Estimator. To the degree possible, this estimation work should be done a day or two prior to the patient’s arrival. Too far in advance, and you may have an inaccurate estimate, but allow enough time that you can have that information ready by the time the patient arrives.

While imaging centers are no strangers to payment arrangements/plans and time of service discounts for true self-pay, there are more options in terms of financing that may make sense for your higher dollar procedures. For hospital-based practices, the job of patient collections has always been tougher. Your radiology bill will be one in a sea of many and you receive (frequently inaccurate) billing information after services have been rendered. You want to bill patients for their portion of the bill as quickly as possible. While there is a philosophy in opposition, I disagree with deductible “holds” (where the patient is not billed for a pre-determined period of time so other organizations receive the deductible denials) for a couple of reasons:

1. If you received incorrect insurance information from the hospital in the first place, holding the bill can only hurt you in the race to timely filing.
2. The radiology bill in comparison to the rest of the patients’ bills will be relatively small. It’s easier for them to comprehend paying $150 rather than $15,000 so there is a likelihood you will be paid earlier.
3. Our jobs are complex enough that we don’t need to add a time element into the mix. The job is (relatively) simple: receive the study, code the study, submit the bill, post the payment, and send the bill. Patients (and practices) don’t like calls of “what is this bill from 2018 for?” Deductible holds made more sense in an era of lower patient deductibles being met in January. Unfortunately, those days are over.

ImagineSoftware is an industry leader in ease of use for backend processes. In this case, the patient tickler and mail return queue. Based on prior consulting work, we found that a good patient collector can net your practice several hundred thousand dollars. And by leveraging today’s technology, that number can only increase.

By working the patient tickler, you can prioritize high dollar studies and use ImagineDiscovery^TM to determine if the self-pay patient may have unreported insurance coverage. Our propensity to pay software assigns a patient an A or B rating which you can work first to maximize your collections.

And speaking of saving time, ImaginePay^TM alleviates the patient payment posting burden on your posters; historically a cumbersome amount of manual work for relatively small dollars. Now the patients can pay online, and a file runs in your system nightly that auto-posts the payments for you.

You can make the burden of collecting patient payments a less Herculean task by considering a few operational tweaks and leveraging new technology. Due to increasing deductible responsibilities, the self-pay population of your practice can no longer afford to be ignored.

For those that follow healthcare closely, there isn’t a week that goes by that the conversation around the shift in patient responsibility doesn’t come up and with good reason. In 2018 the average deductible was north of $1,500 and growing.

Imagine a future in which consumers are empowered with more options for managing their healthcare costs.

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Generally, when you hear these stats they are all focused on one conclusion: Patients are responsible for more of the bill than ever before and providers are spending too much time trying to collect those payments. Recently Fierce Healthcare published an article quantifying this challenge. The article painted a grim picture of the challenges independent medical practices are facing:

• 70% of respondents are worried about administrative tasks taking time away from patients.
• 63% of respondents are worried about patient responsibility.

It’s important that we don’t downplay these challenges. They are real. However, for all the challenges this presents, equally as large is the opportunity providers have in capitalizing on the trend and building a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

The Patient's Perspective:

Healthcare is one of the most complex transactions in the economy. It comes with a range of emotions that aren’t present in any other transaction. Not only are patients possibly given a diagnosis or prognosis that is unwelcomed, but they may also be given a price that they simply can’t afford. The out-of-pocket shift has made going to the doctor a complex choice and in many cases patients are putting off or simply declining the coverage they need.

The Provider's Perspective:

At the end of the day, a healthcare practice is still a business. Now more than ever the financial viability of a healthcare practice is tied to their ability to be effective and efficient in capturing from the patients. However, efficiency and effectiveness need to be evenly matched with compassion and professionalism. Billing professionals are tasked with asking patients to pay for a diagnosis they didn’t want, it’s extremely difficult to do.

Best Practices for Patient Billing:

A fundamental consumer expectation in any financial transaction is being able to answer one simple question- how much will this cost? Unfortunately for the consumer, many hospitals and health care systems lack the ability to do so. Similarly, the healthcare industry is far behind others when it comes to offering the kinds of services that consumers expect, like online appointments and automated payments. Patient are confused and scared by the billing process. The first and last point of contact patients have with your practice is with billing. With that in mind, below are a few recommendations for ways to bridge the gap between patients and provider:

• Communication- One of the biggest challenges facing patients today is they simply don’t understand their bill. Providing clear, up-front messaging about anticipated/estimated balances and following up with patients about their bill alleviates this concern and comforts the patient. Engage patients when and how they want to communicate.
• Technology- There have been rapid advances in the technology available to aid in the collections process. Tools like integrated patient pay services (time-of-service or online) have made the posting process seamless for both the patient and provider. Advances in data collection and analytics have brought artificial intelligence to the forefront allow doctors to more accurately identify problem areas and periodize them.
• Payment Options- With healthcare bills ranging from a few dollars to several thousands of dollars, patients need multiple options to pay their bill. An omnichannel approach combining all payment modalities (in-person, online, over the phone, etc.) ensures you have the right tools for all patients. The goal is to provide a pathway for the patient to pay on time or over time.

Getting paid for healthcare services is hard. It is hard on the patient financially and hard on the healthcare organizations resources. However, when you recognize that this challenge is also an opportunity to provide the patient with the payment option that suits them the best, the result can be happier patients and staff members alike.

From ImagineSoftware's article Piecing together the patient billing puzzle published by Becker's Hospital Review

The world of patient billing software as it relates to customer satisfaction is very much like a puzzle; each individual piece as crucial as the last in creating the end result. If you try to put it together with a few pieces missing, the big picture is never quite right. It will eventually and unexpectedly fall apart.

The statistics are aplenty- there’s a correlation between patients not understanding their medical bills or being forced to pay in an inconvenient way, and providers struggling to collect. In a recent study, 96% of payers said they still pay a portion of their providers by check, 76% said they were confused by their medical bills and 70% of providers reported that it takes one month or longer to collect payment from a patient.

The picture looks pretty incomplete, but there are proven ways that providers can rearrange a disorderly patient billing system to create a true work of art.

If your patients' payment experience isn't an integral part of your billing process, it should be.

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Clear Communication Between Billing Staff and Patients

Never underestimate the importance of being transparent. It’s absolutely necessary for providers to train their billing staff to answer questions about pricing over the phone and in person. Billing staff must learn that communication with patients is not a “soft skill” but something that must become second-nature. This is especially crucial during time of service, when staff is face to face with patients and must think on their feet. Explain financial policies right away, follow up with the patient if there is any confusion and be sure to use an appropriate tone. It’s something that can easily be overlooked, but how you engage in conversation with a patient is just as important as what you say. Also, consider calling your billing staff regularly to help ensure that they are being responsive.

Important Components of a Patient Billing System

There’s a growing interest in the convenience of digital communication, patient payment plans, and more options for paying healthcare bills online with an increasing financial responsibility falling on patients' shoulders.

• When you give patients the freedom to verify recurring payments and make payments anytime and anywhere, providers will have a higher likelihood of collecting the bill in full.
• Allowing a patient to see a list of every procedure, medication, and charge will help them better understand exactly what they’re paying for.
• Giving patients the ability to play flexibly over time makes a huge difference in helping fulfill financial responsibility and in Accounts Receivable.

I’m a HUGE advocate for bargain shopping online. I’m the kind of person that will sign up for an email list that will spam my inbox 5 times a day just to receive 20% off my first online purchase. Yep, I’m that person. I’m constantly looking for the best option price-wise. If I find a pair of shoes I can’t live without, I’ll check at least 10 separate websites and conduct research on availability, pricing, shipping information, and customer service reviews. Maybe one website has the pair I want full-price, but another website has them at a discount and shipping is cheaper. Oh but wait, another website is known for amazing customer service, so I won’t have a hard time sending them back if I don’t like them!

This probably sounds like a headache. I go to great lengths to save myself money because I know it will be worth it. Believe it or not, there’s a huge correlation between my nit-picky online spending habits and those of high-deductible patients in the healthcare world. The Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported the average annual out-of-pocket costs per patient rose almost 230% between 2006 and 2015. In turn, patients are starting to comparison shop (think of it as window shopping, if you will) before they choose a healthcare provider. No longer are the days of patients shrugging their shoulders and blindly waltzing into a specialist’s office based on the opinion of their primary care doctor, without first considering how much something like an MRI will cost. Patients are starting to ask questions in efforts to save themselves a load of medical debt.

Sounds like incredibly bad news for your practice, right? It doesn’t have to be. There are a few steps you can take to ensure that patients choose your services over any other practice, and that you receive the highest turnaround of patient payment possible.

Tell patients upfront how much services will cost. Transparency is key! This is where it becomes important to train your office staff. Make sure they know the correct way to answer questions about pricing over the phone or in person. As I mentioned, a window shopper might be on the other end of the phone, or standing right in front of you, so let them know what to expect. In all likelihood, the patient has done their research on relative pricing depending on their need, you should do the same.

Educate patients on practice payment policies. As soon as a patient walks through the door, make sure payment policies are handed to them along with your new patient paperwork. Any information about co-pays at time of service, your provider networks, and co-insurance should be provided up front, before the patient even sees a specialist. Remember, a large part of the reason practices don’t collect on patient payments is because many of those individuals don’t understand their payment responsibility upfront. Eliminate that confusion for them, and financial loss for you.

Collecting copays and deductibles from patients at time of service. This is your biggest opportunity to collect from the patient, so make it easy for them. Medical billing software that includes estimation tools provide a snapshot in time of what a patient owes based on their deductible, co-insurance, or co-pay as they stand in front of your staff. The patient’s responsible charges are calculated against contracted rates with regional and national payers in real-time, providing an immediate estimate of the patient’s propensity to pay. Meaning improved revenue cycle management for you and less confusion for the patient as to how much they’re expected to pay out of pocket.

Offer discounts or payment plans. Just as I like to consider all of my payment options when shopping online, patients are beginning to negotiate. They want options, whether that’s a discounted payment rate or a patient payment plan. So, why neglect that need? Implementing a no-interest healthcare payment plan allows you to offer affordable treatment without the need to necessarily discount your services. Also, give them scheduling options. When patients know they have the choice to pay for service over 3, 6, or 12 months, you’re much more likely to collect on that service payment. Patients feel more in control and less pressure, while your practice collects on faster payments so you can focus on their care.

Making patient payment simple combined with value-based care will differentiate your practice from all others in your niche. Window shoppers become long-term patrons, and your practice puts more focus on what really matters, caring for patients.

It wasn't that long ago that I was a stressed out patient with a mountain of medical debt and no end in sight. Unfortunately for both me and the hospital, I was never given a payment plan option. Had I been given multiple payment options, they would have gotten paid much quicker and I would have been a much happier patient.

“Oh, I see you have a balance,” explained the lady at the front desk. My heart dropped to the floor knowing I had less than $200 in my checking account and had just transferred funds once again from my savings. The sweat started flowing, the anxiety bubbling up, and it was all that I could do to keep a calm face and act surprised. “Oh really?” I questioned, knowing very well that it was left over from that long hospital stay after becoming deathly ill from eating a raw oyster of all things.

She must have noticed the worried look on my face. “Don’t worry, you can pay that later,” she said. The relief washed over me. With those few words, the sweet front desk lady made multiple mistakes:

1. She never told me the balanced owed
2. I wasn't given payment options
3. She showed absolutely no sense of urgency
4. I assumed I couldn't pay

This whole scenario had me wondering- how many front desk and back office staff members let patients skip away with no expectation for them to pay their balance? Could this be one of the reasons medical practices are writing off so much of patient responsibility? I’m all about improving the patient experience, but there must be a time when patients are expected to pay their bills, right?

If your patients' payment experience isn't an integral part of your billing process, it should be.

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Billing staff must be educated often about discussing payment options with patients and should be giving patients every opportunity available to pay their bill. If you don’t have multiple payment methods and tools available, you need to rethink your collection strategy.

Patients Want Payment Options

While writing checks seems like a more archaic form of payment in today’s digital (PayPal/Venmo) world. Surprisingly, I still hear of medical practices who only accept checks. These practices would rather not give up the small percentage that it costs for the merchant processing than to offer their patient’s an easier way to pay. If you are only allowing check payments, you are letting money walk out your door. I personally can’t tell you where my checkbook is currently hiding. While many Americans (especially the elderly population) are still relying on using checks, digital forms of payment are becoming more popular among millennials.

Meet the Millennials: A survey of over 1,895 millennial patients in March 2018:

• By 2019 millennials will be 72 million strong and outnumber baby boomers
• Nearly 3 out of 4 millennials (73%) that walk through a healthcare provider's door are already in debt
• Two-thirds (67%) are concerned about their ability to pay a bill over $1,000
• 71% are interested in no-interest financing for a bill below $1,000, and 72% said it was important for their provider to discuss financing options with them
• Only about 14% reported receiving a no low-interest financing option

Don't stop at just allowing checks and credit cards. Think about offering a no interest payment plan option like HonorCare^®. This will not only help increase and expedite your patient payments, but will also improve your patient experience, because you are giving them the tool they need to pay their medical bill.

Take advantage of payment technologies. Think about converting from paper to electronic statements, electronic receipts, card-on-file capabilities, an online payment portal such as ImaginePay^TM, and flexible payment plan options. Allowing patients to set up automatic payments reduces anxiety caused by multiple bills piling up, reduces the amount of paper mail coming to them, and reduces the cost it takes you to actually get those patient payments.

Source: HealthFirst Financial “Meet the Millennials” Survey conducted by NBC News/GenForward University of Chicago