Patient Payments Blog

I wrote about this in my last post but it bears repeating. Many of us (myself included) need a few reminders before we move forward. My recent experience with trying to pay a bill made me even more passionate about making payment simple for your patients. 

Topics: Patient Payment Technology, Payments, Patient Experience

Healthcare is often complex, frustrating, emotionally draining, and stressful. Sometimes it pays to take a step back and simply laugh at it.

Topics: Payments, Patient Experience

I’ve talked to hundreds, perhaps thousands of practice managers, billing managers, and finance executives in the thirteen years I’ve been in the healthcare payments industry. One of the questions I usually bring up is, ‘Who sets your payment plan policy?’

Topics: Patient Payment Technology, Payments, Payment Plans

In the past two years I’ve personally employed the services of architects, structural engineers, attorneys, auto mechanics, accountants, and other highly trained professionals. All of whom have skills and training that enabled me to do things I cannot do. NONE of these professionals had any problem asking me to pay them. In fact, I didn’t get to enjoy the outcome of their work UNTIL I had paid them.

Topics: medical practice management, practice management, Payments

As if your job was not hard enough, there are organizations, writers, and public service companies out there that are constantly telling patients not to pay their bills. They might argue that they are only trying to help patients pay the correct amount. But human nature tells me that when people read articles that give them a way to delay or get out of paying something they don’t want to pay - they will take it.

Topics: Patient Billing Compliance, Past Due, Payments, Financial Policy

I recently had a very interesting meeting with a physical therapy office. We were discussing payment plans. Specifically, when the practice could implement one.

Topics: Patient Payment Policies, Patient Payment Technology, Payments

Payment plans are becoming a necessity in many healthcare practices. The treatments your patients need are simply too expensive, and their deductibles are too high for them to pay a large balance.

 

In order to collect the full amount of billed services while preventing past due A/R from climbing, payment plans are a good option. To make payment plans successful you’ll have to do a little planning yourself. Below are some simple steps that can help you develop an effective policy. 

Topics: Medical Office Administration, practice management, Payments, Financial Policy

What is the best time for securing payment for treatment? It’s when you set the appointment.

If you are serious about your patients paying you after treatment, securing appointments with a card-on-file is the single best way to get it done.

Topics: Payments, Scripts, Scheduling

We live in a world of apps and auto bill pay. Want a coffee? Order and pay for it on your app, walk in and it’s waiting for you with no further interaction. Not good at remembering to pay your water bill? Don’t like paper bills and writing checks? Set up an auto-pay and forget it. What about mortgage, car, insurance, cable, Netflix, or a thousand other things? A vast percentage of Americans chose to make all these payments automatically.

Topics: Medical Office Administration, practice management, Medical Billing, invoicing, Payments, Financial Policy, estatements

I’m seeing more and more encouragement, no, insistence that doctors are going to have to get into the loan business. I’ve read two articles in the past two weeks that specifically target the need for doctors to finance patient payments. Many others allude to the need. Some of them are as simple as creating payment plans all the way to actually financing the care with a loan contract. One product site I ran across says straight up – ‘Hospitals are now Banks, too.’

Topics: HDHP, Past Due, Payments, Financial Policy, Loans