Meeting Patient Consumerism with Novel Medical Billing Solutions

MEETING PATIENT CONSUMERISM WITH

NOVEL MEDICAL BILLING SOLUTIONS

Black Book’s 2017 RCM survey reports that with patients becoming the “new payers”, providers plan to implement innovative patient-friendly payment solutions.

A recent Black Book Revenue Cycle Management survey has found that most healthcare providers plan to meet the rise in patient consumerism with innovative medical billing solutions and practices. In fact, the rising use of IT resources in the healthcare sector and government support for the same is a key factor driving the global medical billing outsourcing market. As costs for consumers continue to rise, they are becoming increasingly more engaged with their own healthcare. With patients becoming the “new payers”, the survey notes that providers are looking to implement innovative payment solutions that meet consumer preferences and promote fast transactions.

Black Book’s study was based on data collected between April 1 and September 30, 2017 from 2,698 healthcare providers, and a focused group of 850 healthcare consumers insured under high deductible health plans (HDHPs). The aims of the survey were to: 

Report trends in consumer satisfaction and patient experiences, outline payment challenges, and identify best corrective strategies for healthcare providers



Determine how the shift in responsibility for medical costs from employers to patients is impacting uncollected provider revenue

Up to 82% of medical providers and 92% of hospitals plan to abandon ‘timeintensive, error-prone, manual efforts to back-end process and reconcile bills’ by Q4 2018.

Issues from the Provider Perspective The other key findings of Black Book’s 2017 Revenue Cycle Management survey from the provider perspective are as follows: 

Physician practices, hospitals and health systems revealed that profit margins continue to be impacted negatively by traditional collection solutions



82% of surveyed providers said they plan to handle the rise in patient consumerism with more retail-like technology solutions and practices



89% of provider financial administrators expect that healthcare payments will be made on phones and mobile devices by Q4 2018, though only 20% are currently ready for electronic payments other than checks, cash or credit/debit cards.



83% of physician practices under five practitioners reported the slow payment of high-deductible plan patients is their main collection challenge, followed by the difficulties that practice staff face when communicating patient payment accountability (81 percent).



83% of ambulatory providers revealed they typically estimated their patient responsibilities incorrectly at the time of service, which was worse than last year's rate of 78 percent.



Improvement was noted among the physician practice respondents that utilize electronic payment alternatives. The three patient payment features in highest demand from the provider perspective are: -

Managing

consumer

expectations

through

insurance

eligibility

verification prior to appointment (91 percent) -

Transparency

via

cost

estimation,

which

is

necessary

to

prepare

consumers about their payments (85 percent) and -

Enhancements which make payments more convenient for patients (87 percent)

Healthcare Consumer Insights The main findings of the survey from the consumer perspective are as follows: 

Since 2015, patients saw a 29.4 percent increase in both deductible and outof-pocket maximum costs



Deductible for consumers averaged $1820 this year and out-of-pocket costs rose to over $4400



Nearly 62% of medical bills are currently paid online and 95% of consumers polled reported they would pay online if the provider's website had the option



71 percent of patients also said that mobile pay and billing alerts have improved their satisfaction with the provider.



Guest pay is also improving customer satisfaction (guest pay involves allowing spouses, family members, friends, attorneys and others to pay your bills without accessing your medical record), with 59 percent of consumers attributing the convenience and simplicity of online payments without the hassles of registration and passwords



Online estimation, payment plan administration, and on-demand instructions support were ranked by consumers in the top five improvements providers could make to improve satisfaction and improve produce more cost transparency for consumers. For providers, these strategies would ensure faster posting and collection of payments without manual processing errors.

With healthcare providers looking to implement technology driven billing and collection methods to meet consumer demand, medical billing and coding outsourcing can be expected to grow. Reliable medical billing companies provide end-to-end revenue management solutions using the latest software. They also help their clients implement payment collection methods that improve both patient satisfaction and collections.