Patient Payments Blog

The quest for a paperless office is not complete without eStatements. If your practice is looking for ways to reduce paperwork, increase efficiency, find patient friendly options, and simply get paid faster, then you should look into eStatements.

Did you get a call this week from a payment processor offering you lower rates for credit card processing? My guess is that you did, maybe two or three calls. You might not have taken those calls but they came nevertheless.

I'm also guessing that the representatives that called you had no idea what unique challenges you face in collecting patient payments. They were hoping to get a quick response to their never ending promises of lower rates. After all, processing is all the same, right? Assuming that every company or bank that processes credit card payments is the same could end up costing you thousands annually.

We've talked about change the last few weeks with the hope that we’ve convinced a few of you to attempt it. Change is almost never easy. Change requires us to change, to become or do something we have been perfectly comfortable not to be or do. The particular change we’ve been encouraging is for practices to take a more energetic approach toward their patients payment habits. The idea is that if we expect our patients to change their habits we will have to change ours. 

The root change we are referring is implementing a mandatory card-on-file for every patient. It might sound like the kind of massive change that will upset patients, office staff, and physicians alike. But if you’ve been following our blog the last few weeks you’ve been introduced to a practice that has successfully implemented this change with great results.

Whenever I hear of a practice successfully making a fundamental change like this I wonder how the change changed them. So I asked them, and here is their response. (Quotes are exactly as communicated to us by the practice manager)

People might lie about numbers but numbers don’t lie. When more dollars are collected from the same patient population then something good must be happening. That is the case with the practice we’ve been discussing the last few weeks.

We’ve spent the last three posts introducing the practice that has achieved remarkable A/R reduction results with a few simple policy changes and the consistent application of them. A 25% receivables reduction in four and one half months sounds unreal - maybe even in the realm of marketing hyperbole. It’s not. In the posts to come we will show you the numbers and graphs this practice shared with us.

“That’s fine for them”, you might say “but their practice is nothing like ours”. “We’ve tried everything but never got that kind of results” is a common dismay I hear from practice managers and doctors. I tell them then that I don’t believe they’ve tried everything.  If you will make the changes this practice did and apply them consistently without exception you will have similar results.

It was a dark and stormy night... The rain fell in torrents... 

You walk out of your front door, down a dark sidewalk, sheilding yourself from the rain as you rush to your mailbox. A wolf howls somewhere in the distance. A black cat stops in front of you, hisses, and runs off. You hear ghouls... goblins... ghosts... And then, the scariest part...

You open your mailbox to find an envelope with PAST DUE written in blood red ink.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Patients are having a harder time paying their medical bills thanks to the increase in high deductible plans. That translates to practices and hospitals having a harder time collecting patient payments.

Outdated tactics like sending paper patient statements are ineffective and need to be abolished--for good. The new healthcare consumer is looking for more streamlined, convenient ways to pay. It's time you give it to them. 

January is a good time for reflection. Out with the old and in with the new. At your practice, there are a number of things to reflect on: patient care, office policies, patient statements, revenue cycle management, or a host of other things that worry you every day.

If revenue cycle management is something that troubled you in 2014, then it’s time to find a solution for 2015. Don't waste any more of your time on patient collections that yield little to no results. 

For decades, medical practices have relied upon patient statements to collect receivables.  However, patient statements have become increasingly ineffective as more people transition to electronic billing and payments.  In response to this shift, medical practices must adopt other, more effective ways of collecting money from patients.  These improved collection methods make the end of the patient statement the beginning of increased cash flow. 

Higher deductible health insurance plans are nobody’s friend.

They have resulted in complications for patients, physicians, practices, hospitals, and everyone in between. These plans are confusing and often leave everyone guessing at what a patient owes.