Increased patient responsibility is squeezing providers’ revenues and margins. The vast majority of patients are willing to pay what they owe but they also expect to get clear cost estimates up-front and flexible payment options.
Ballooning subscriptions to HDHPs magnify the importance and urgency of verifying patients’ eligibility, estimating patients’ out-of-pockets costs, and collecting payment at the point-of-service. Providers need to know each patient’s responsibility and make every effort to collect payment or arrange a payment plan prior to rendering services.
During HFMA’s Virtual Conference in February 2015, Joe Fifer, HFMA President & CEO, recommended that healthcare providers implement a new billing and payment model.
Clearly, it’s best to collect payments from patients early in the revenue cycle. Providers are working hard to make it easier for patients to pay sooner in the revenue cycle but there are some big hurdles in the way:
- Determining patient responsibility from suspect payer information and difficult-to-calculate fee estimates
- Assessing a patient’s propensity-to-pay to help decide which payment method is likely to provide optimal revenue
- Educating each patient on their charges, payments from third parties, and options for meeting their payment responsibility
We can help you clear these hurdles by funding projects to strengthen the front-end of your revenue cycle with REVENUE 365
