Move to an End-to-End Electronic Services Solution TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE BENEFITS ELECTRONIC SERVICES OFFER YOU AND YOUR CLIENTS By Laurie Robinson matter how you look at it, electronic services are a benefit to your business. They save you and your clients time and money, provide you access to patient information when and how you need it, and help streamline office workflows to increase productivity. Whether you are working directly with a payor, through a vendor, or are using a multipayor website, you can choose the solutions that meet the needs of your office and your clients. There is no doubt that electronic services can reduce administrative expenses for you and your clients. While you may be familiar with some electronic services that you use, think about whether you utilize all of these services available to conduct work electronically and, subsequently, bring all the benefits you can out of a complete, end-to-end electronic process. Eligibility and Benefits Current benefits to implementing this electronic solution Whether you employ a website or electronic data interchange (EDI), electronic services allow you to access detailed patient coverage information much more easily and quickly than using phone or fax. In fact, many solutions offer almost instantaneously send and receive eligibility and benefits information rather than tying up staff waiting on hold. Electronic eligibility and benefits information can also be stored for future access, instead of relying on handwritten notes from phone calls. Why it is beneficial to be tied to other electronic solutions Verifying benefits up front can assist you with downstream processes, such as identifying services that require precertification or estimating patient payment responsibility. 22 HBMA BILLING • JULY.AUGUST.2014 Estimating Patient Out-of-Pocket Costs Current benefits to implementing this electronic solution Electronic estimation tools that allow you and your clients to provide patients with accurate out-of-pocket estimates are now available. A variety of these tools can be used in conjunction with confirming eligibility and benefits prior to a patient going to a practice or when they have arrived at the office. Providing an estimate to a patient allows the healthcare professional to have a financial discussion with that patient about the cost of exams, procedures, and hospitalizations. In turn, speaking with a patient about their responsibility can increase the likelihood that they understand and meet their obligations, thus reducing the possibility of sending them to collections. What is coming in the industry for this solution? Many payors and some healthcare professionals have created their own estimation tools. Work groups in the industry are looking at ways to standardize and streamline the identification of patient and payor payment responsibility. No
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