Patient Billing And Collections Process Needs A Tune-Up

A new study from a patient payments vendor suggests that many healthcare organizations haven’t optimized their patient billing and collections process, a vulnerability which has persisted despite their efforts to crack the problem. The survey found that while the entire billing collections process was flawed, respondents said that collecting patient payments was the toughest problem, followed by the need to deploy better tools and technologies. Another issue was the nature of their collections efforts. Sixty percent of responding organizations use collections agencies, an approach which can establish an adversarial relationship between patient and provider and perhaps drive consumers elsewhere. Yet another concern was long delays in issuing bills to patients. The survey found that 65% of organizations average more than 60 days to collect patient payments, and 40% waited on payments for more than 90 days. These results align other studies that look at patient payments, all of which echo the notion that the patient collection process is far from what it should be. For example, a study by payment services vendor InstaMed found that more than 90% of consumers would like to know what the payment responsibility is prior to a provider visit. Worse, very few consumers even know what the deductible, co-insurance and out-of-pocket maximums are, making it more likely that the will be hit with a bill they can’t afford. As with the Cedar study, InstaMed’s research found that pro...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR Health Care Healthcare Healthcare Analytics Healthcare Business Intelligence HealthCare IT Hospital EHR Hospitals Patients Revenue Cycle Management Accounts Receivable Source Type: blogs