Health plays an important economic role in modern society. Despite widespread access to technological and human resources, the US economy faces significant problems with bankruptcies rising from healthcare debt, healthcare costs and uncompensated care.
There are lots of reasons why Americans don’t pay their medical bills. Not only are they much bigger than many patients expect, most healthcare providers haven’t shared prices (or even estimates) before costs were incurred until recently,
Consumer Reports reported nearly 3 in 10 insured Americans had an unpaid medical debt sent to a collection agency. The billing process has been confusing and inconsistent for many patients. Here are some of the common complaints we hear:
Historically, healthcare facilities have relied on commercial and government payers to meet their revenue goals but healthcare's largest growing payer is their patients. Now is the time to start investing in ways to connect and communicate with patients.
Here’s some solutions we’ve found help transform your patient pay revenue.
In order to improve payment outcomes, healthcare organizations need to analyze their current billing methods and implement creative new solutions. The following tips are a great place to start:
Results from revising our patient statements: An increase in online payments, secure automated payments through Emerald's interactive voice response system (IVR) and a decrease in agent assisted payments meaning, less agent talk time.
Online Payments | IVR Payments | Agent Assisted Payments |
+8% | +7% | -4% |
Effective healthcare management demands a simple and transparent payment solution. Communicating with your patients helps to decrease resolution time, uncompensated care, bankruptcy, and overall healthcare spending. While costs will always be an issue for some patients, changing how you communicate can have a huge effect on how quickly and effectively payments are resolved.