Automated phone payments could be the answer
By MARTIN TRAUTSCHOLD
In the vein of solving one problem, creating another, patients who have health insurance are seeing a strong trend toward lower premiums with the accompanying higher deductibles. This trend, accelerated and exacerbated by Covid-related job losses, means that some insured individuals are disincentivized to seek care and/or obtain vital medication—thus costing both the patient and the insurer more down the line. And for those who were fully insured via their jobs, but who were laid off and must now pay out of pocket for coverage, well, they are naturally homing in on the cheapest plans (read highest deductibles).
This trend, say some (1), can be traced to the 2008 recession, which led business owners to consider high-deductible plans as an alternative to layoffs. And this movement doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
Patient Bill Pay Expectations are Ever-Changing
As patients are required to play a more active role in paying for their care, they are also paying closer attention to the financial details of that care. Increasingly thought of as “consumers,” patients want to know how much money they will have to expend for their care—before they walk in the door. In addition, they are fed up with complicated or confusing statements. Finally, they are looking for extreme convenience when it comes to payments—this sometimes means using an electronic payment method, whether online or by phone, that they can utilize at 2pm or 2am.
Managing the entire patient experience, before treatment, during treatment and throughout the billing and collection process is critical. Some healthcare providers are selling their debt to third parties, who then undertake the effort to collect the debt. Introducing a third party causes the healthcare provider to lose all control of the “patient experience” in that debt collection process. If the third-party debt collector ends up doing something upsetting to the patient, the healthcare provider can risk losing all future revenue from that patient as they choose to go elsewhere.
Traditionally, many healthcare providers have relied solely on patient billing and payment aspects of their electronic medical and practice management systems such as Epic Systems. Epic alone (like many systems) doesn’t allow for a completely self-service patient payment experience. The Epic patient web portal, called “My Chart,” offers a great self-service online payment method, however there is no built-in self-service phone automated payment method with Epic. That is where healthcare providers need to look to third party providers to be able to provide 24/7 self-service phone payment systems.
Patients Want to Pay on Their Schedule
One example of how practices lose money is that many patients want to pay their bills on their own time, in the evenings or on the weekends, but when the practices or billing offices are closed. Ideally, an automated system that could handle such payments so that staff could refocus its efforts on responding to patient needs and increasing patient satisfaction.
Tackling the convenience issue in a way that is compliant with Payment Card Industry Data
Security Standards and HIPAA can be a headache for medical providers already straining under the weight of Covid. Collecting payments from hundreds or thousands of patients necessitates that any such system be fully integrated with the patient’s financial system and credit card processor.
The Evolution of Healthcare Automation
As payment plans evolve, we are seeing more strategic undertakings on the part of healthcare entities. For example, patients are sometimes offered the chance to divide their bills into multiple payments over a period of months (or years). In other cases, healthcare providers are urging patients to pay prior to treatment. We are seeing this trend because so many providers get stuck with mountains of unpaid debt. At times, patients may be asked to establish a regular monthly amount that is to be completed via an automated payment method.
Those in healthcare should also keep an eye on a fundamental shift in consumer spending, namely, the Buy Now Pay Later trend. If financially overextended patients can establish a manageable monthly payment plan for healthcare spending, then that would benefit all parties.
With Buy-Now-Pay-Later, healthcare practices improve their cash flow and patient satisfaction improves as they are given a reprieve from a massive, one-time, bill.
The ultimate solution to help manage the patient experience and expectations is a system that frees up staff time (no more manual calls or payment processing), offers to split up the entire bill into manageable monthly payments, provides an easy solution for the patient (24/7 phone automated payments or web portal payment options), and is completely secure.
Martin Trautschold is CEO of 1-800 Notify, a healthcare communications firm that is fully HIPAA and PCI compliant, an Epic App Orchard Partner and integrates with many systems. 1-800 Notify reduces no-shows and boosts collections by supporting millions of inbound Payment IVR phone calls, patient balance due reminders, two-way appointment reminders, and patient wellness and broadcast messages.
