Let's be honest, patient statements can be confusing. There's often so much jargon on them that patients don't know when to pay their bill, let alone how to pay it. So, what can you do to simplify statements, and is it even possible to make things easier? We think so. Here's an overview of what's going wrong with patient statements and how to fix them.

Debt collection is notoriously challenging, especially in the healthcare sector. There are ways to discourage late payments and improve payment rates, with practice, courage, and clear communication necessary to understand the issue and reduce associated problems.

Have you been operating with an understaffed department? Are your 60-120-day buckets getting larger and larger? Do you have way too many manual processes? Were you nodding at any of these questions as you were reading them?  Adding more staff and manual processes are what I characterize as "band-aid" fixes -- great for clean-up projects, but not ideal as permanent solutions to a problem that will continue to rear its ugly head. 

There’s a goldmine hidden within your billing processes but finding and extracting the extra revenue on your own can take time and resources that few organizations have – unless they have the right partners.

Since Medicaid is a program that is jointly run by the federal and state governments, the billing requirements will vary from state to state. It's important that medical administration personnel in charge of billing understand the rules and protocols, especially where it relates to patient coverage. If a patient is denied Medicaid on the basis of failure to renew benefits, it may still be possible to receive Medicaid coverage through the program's reinstatement process. Note that this is different from situations in which a patient is denied Medicaid on the basis of income or has been otherwise excluded from Medicaid eligibility.

Disputes are increasing every year and resolving them takes time, coordination and money. I have been in the debt collection industry for 12 years. My area of expertise has been in Medical Receivables where I’ve seen the dispute resolution