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Consumerism in Healthcare Payments
Achieving Payment Assurance
By Bill Marvin
taken from the May/June issue of HBMA Billing
The sweep of consumerism in healthcare
has brought changes to the healthcare payments process, driving billing
services to evaluate their collection tactics. While providers
previously relied almost exclusively on payer payments for their
revenue, patient responsibility payments are now an increasingly
important provider revenue source. Billing services must increase their
focus on collecting from patients.
On a nationwide scale, the number
of people enrolled in high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) has increased
from one million to more than eleven million since 2005. This is
impacting all providers, from solo practitioners to large hospital
systems.1 This jump in HDHPs translates to a drastic increase in the
amount of energy and resources spent to collect, as the costs to collect
from patients are three to five times greater than the costs to collect
from payers. Additionally, these efforts have brought minimal success,
as, according to McKinsey Quarterly research, providers wrote off more
than $65 billion due to bad patient debt in 2010.2
If patients – the consumers – regularly pay their other bills,
why is it so challenging to collect from patients for rendered
healthcare services?
The Patient's New Role: The Consumer
Patients now have a more prominent role in the healthcare
payments process. As consumers, they have payment expectations that have
been shaped by their experiences in other industries. For instance,
patients expect to understand their payment responsibilities as well as
the terms and timing of the payment process. In addition, they expect to
be able to use their preferred payment methods and to be proactively
notified of payment due dates.
However, providers frequently do not know how to meet these expectations and therefore are unable to collect.
To collect from patients, billing services need to focus on the
demands of patients as consumers and put in place the required tools,
policies, and processes in order to achieve payment assurance.
Achieving Payment Assurance
Included in this article is a list of requirements for billing
services to meet in order to achieve payment assurance. The "Payment
Assurance Level One" requirements enable billing services to increase
collections by 20–40% and decrease operational costs by 20–40%.
Furthermore, by meeting the additional requirements listed in "Payment
Assurance Level Two," billing services can increase collections by
40–200% and decrease costs by 40–60%.
Billing services are in a unique situation for patient collections
because they support two different patient engagement models. First,
hospital-based: providers who do not interact with the patient at the
point of service (radiologists, anesthesiologists, etc.). Second,
office-based: providers who interact with the patient at the point of
service (family practitioners, primary care facilities, etc.). To
acknowledge the varying patient collection needs required in both of
these scenarios, the requirements that apply only to the office-based
model are indicated with a "•".
Payment Assurance Level One Requirements
- Prior to patient visits and at the
point of service, verify eligibility and inform patients that they will
be expected to pay for all patient responsibilities, including co-pays,
deductibles, and co-insurance, per their plan benefits.
- At the point of service, collect accurate patient demographic and eligibility data.
- At the point of service, capture the patient's preferred payment method (e.g., payment card or bank account)
in a secure and compliant manner.
- Deliver easy-to-read patient statements detailing patient responsibilities.
- Accept all payment methods, including all cards (credit, debit, HSA, FSA), checks, and cash.
- Accept patient payments in every way possible! (e.g., via phone, mail, and online)
- Offer payment plans and clearly
define policies for patients and staff regarding payment plan terms,
minimum amounts, and payment frequencies.
- Deliver automatic, electronic notifications to patients and staff when patient payments are processed.
- Train staff on patient interaction
policies that focus on listening to the patient, empathizing with the
patient, agreeing on the problem, and partnering on a solution.
- Define collection policies and processes for aged receivables.
- Manage all patient payments through a private, secure cloud network that is not only compliant, but also independently certified and audited against the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) and HIPAA (check MasterCard, Visa, and EHNAC for a list of independently certified solutions/vendors).
Payment Assurance Level Two Requirements
- At the point of service, estimate
patient responsibilities based on fee schedules, eligibility data,
financial data, and other metrics. Communicate the payment terms,
timing, notifications, and process with the patient.
- Pre-authorize the patient's preferred payment method to ease the collection of patient payments upon claim adjudication.
- Identify or verify accurate patient addresses and demographics.
- Automate and extend the ability to
collect patient payments via phone through the use of Interactive Voice
Response (IVR) solutions with integrated patient collection
capabilities.
• Integrate solutions using open technology standards to automate the patient collection process.
- Automate patient payment posting into the practice management system.
- Assess the need for patient payment incentives, such as discounts, for prompt payments.
- Assess the need for a collection agency for aged receivables.
Opportunities for Billing Services
By increasing the focus on collecting from patients and using
the tools, policies, and processes required to achieve payment
assurance, billing services will increase patient collections while
decreasing the time and operational costs to collect. Using these
tactics to maximize patient collections, billing services and their
clients will succeed in the evolving healthcare payments industry.
To learn more about achieving payment assurance, download InstaMed's Healthcare Payments White Paper for Providers at www.instamed.com.
Bill
Marvin has been in the revenue cycle industry since 1993 and is the
co-founder and CEO of InstaMed, the leading Healthcare Payments Network.
Prior to InstaMed, Bill was an executive in Accenture's Health and
Life Sciences practice, focused on payer to provider connectivity.
Prior to Accenture, Bill founded CareWide (now a part of AllScripts
after three acquisitions), a practice management system for provider
offices.