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As they do with everything else they purchase, consumers demand more personalized experiences with their healthcare providers. To meet that demand, healthcare organizations have shifted how they think about customer engagement. It's no longer enough to bring patients in, take them through a treatment plan, and send them on their way; providers are now focused on empowering patients, treating them like customers, and using data to improve outcomes and quality of care. This shift is partly due to the fact that rising medical costs have forced health consumers to be choosier about their providers, which means those providers have to be more competitive. While this shift is relatively recent in healthcare, consumers are used to comparing companies and products before making a purchase. With that in mind, healthcare providers should take a cue from the successful marketing techniques used in other competitive industries: collecting data, using that data, and connecting with consumers to get more data. With marketing solutions from Experian Health, healthcare organizations have an easy way to leverage data and more effectively reach their current and future customers. Finding your audience The people you want to market to aren’t just patients; they’re consumers — and hopefully future customers. And these consumers have specific lifestyles and habits. The best way to learn about those habits is through a comprehensive database of consumer information. Experian Health's ConsumerViewSM lets you tap into more than 30 years of historical data on more than 300 million consumers. Learn exactly who your audience is by pooling data points on core demographics including age, gender, marital and parental status, and more. ConsumerView pulls from a variety of sources and is constantly being updated, which means marketers can trust that they're getting accurate, actionable information. After you identify your target market, you can combine the data from ConsumerView with Mosaic® USA and TrueTouchSM to segment, identify, and successfully reach your target audience with the most appropriate message. Consumer segmenting made easy While ConsumerView is the source for your audience’s data, Mosaic USA is how you make sense of it all. Think of it like an automatic filing cabinet, sorting your data into relevant groups and presenting it to you for easy accessibility. The segmentation system separates consumer audiences into 71 unique types within 19 overarching groups; more than 300 ConsumerView data points detail consumers' preferences, choices, and habits. This segmentation helps you zero in on your audience and tailor your messages to each group you're targeting. Using Mosaic USA, you could identify which segments of your audience would benefit from preventative medicine or which ones are currently living with certain health conditions. Then, you could send those audience segments messages and materials about your relevant services. With the TrueTouch platform, you can ensure each message is also delivered to your audience through the channels they prefer for optimal engagement. Getting on their level Knowing who your audience members are and what they value most is an important marketing step, but you still have to deliver your message in a way that resonates with them. That might be through personalized emails, ads on their favorite social media channels, or even direct mail advertisements. TrueTouch gives you the power to personalize your marketing campaign for each unique segment of your audience according to their preferred methods of engagement. Reaching out to customers before they need to come in for a visit will make that visit more personal and productive. Your personalized marketing campaign can leverage emails, social media interaction, website retargeting, and more, depending on what's most effective. As your marketing campaign draws in more customers, you can continually improve your TrueTouch usage by capturing data on which channels were most effective for which customer segments. Ultimately, healthcare providers should be the most focused on providing excellent care and making customers healthy. That's why Experian Health's marketing tools are designed to make healthcare marketing as easy and as effective as possible. Today's consumers are savvy and choose their care providers carefully, but gaining valuable insights into their behavior is simpler than you might think.

Between 2015 and 2017, patients’ direct responsibility for their healthcare payments grew by 29.4 percent, according to a study by Black Book. On average, that left each patient with more than $6,200 in deductible and out-of-pocket expenses for the year. But patients aren't the only ones who have had to grapple with these changes; the shift has changed hospitals' revenue models as well. In the same Black Book study, 92 percent of hospitals reported having trouble with collections using traditional solutions. The choice that many hospitals face is to either write off losses on late payments or pay exorbitant fees for collections agencies to pursue them all. Neither option is ideal, and for some healthcare providers, neither one is possible. Fortunately, there’s a third option that doesn’t involve pursuing all delinquent accounts — just the ones that are worth the effort. How Experian Health optimizes collections for you Experian Health’s Collections Optimization Manager is designed to help your organization sort out which patients are able and willing to pay from the ones who can’t or won’t pay. That helps you streamline the collections process and stabilize your revenue cycle. Experian Health's collections software does this in three important ways: 1. Segmenting patients by likelihood of recovery The first step in streamlining your collections process is to identify which patients will actually pay their bills. Experian Health's Collections Optimization Manager segments your patient population according to each patient's ability to pay, taking into account his or her unique financial situation and health coverage information. 2. Directing patients to the appropriate personnel Some accounts can be outsourced to a collections agency, while others should be directed to a financial assistance program. Using the Collections Optimization Manager to analyze your patient population helps reduce the cost of collections by showing you which type of personnel can best help each patient. 3. Keeping updated data on payment benchmarks The Collections OptimizationManager isn't a one-time solution; it's a dynamic system that continuously monitors each patient’s successful or missed payments. This data is immediately aggregated in the collections manager and kept up-to-date, ensuring healthcare providers have a real-time picture of a patient's financial situation. Optimized collections in action Healthcare’s patient-dependent revenue cycle is forcing hospitals and other healthcare providers to change their collections strategies. By using Experian Health's collections software in tandem with our other revenue cycle management solutions, you can reinvent your entire billing and collections process. It not only boosts your revenue, but also helps you provide patients with more personalized, compassionate financial options. For example, after Altru Health Systems, a healthcare provider in North Dakota, implemented Experian Health's Collections Optimization Manager, it identified 4,000 accounts that were eligible for nearly $2.7 million in assistance. This helped customers in need and boosted Altru's successful rate of collections by 114 percent by identifying accounts with a high propensity to pay. "Partnering with Experian Health has allowed us to be an advocate for our patients while also protecting our bottom line," says Stan Salwei, Altru's patient financial services manager. "Within 10 months of implementing, we were able to completely revamp our internal collections strategy to more effectively provide financial solutions for our patients in an ethical and compassionate manner." Experian Health does more than just provide the tools; we'll consult with you and your team personally to find the most effective ways to use them. If you have not yet implemented a streamlined collections strategy, contact us today.

As most doctors will say, healthcare is about helping patients, not making money. However, these two goals aren't as separate as some would assume. In order to help their patients, healthcare providers need to buy equipment, pay salaries, and spend money to maintain an effective, efficient customer experience. Revenue is what makes healthcare work, so preserving revenue should be a main priority for healthcare administrators. That's how Stacy Calvaruso, assistant vice president of patient services and revenue cycle at Louisiana Children's Medical Center (LCMC) Health, approaches her job. "Revenue preservation is a term that we use in our organization to talk about how we're going to ensure that we're maintaining all the money that we can possibly collect for the services that we provide for our community," Calvaruso says. "Everyone is being asked to do more with less, and patient access or the revenue cycle is no different than the clinical areas. We have to ensure that we're able to collect all the money and all the income that we generate as an organization so that we can put more money back into the community to provide more services to more patients." For help with revenue preservation, Calvaruso's team uses Experian Health's revenue cycle management tools. The full suite of Experian Health's revenue management products help LCMC Health facilitate patient access, manage contracts, process and submit claims, and streamline collections. Here's a closer look at how Experian Health approaches each stage of the revenue preservation process. Patient Access With 86 percent of leading medical practices seeing an increase in payer prior authorization, having accurate and comprehensive patient data is crucial to getting patients the treatment they need with fewer denials from insurers. Experian Health can help by verifying patient information at the point of service. From there, automated software coordinates patient data across all connected facilities so customers, doctors, and insurers are better informed about possible treatment options and how much they're likely to cost, eliminating any surprises in the payment or collections process. According to Calvaruso, a transparent process helps to prevent repeated work, which is a major cause of revenue loss. "Instead of calling a patient after the fact about a denial or incorrect insurance information, we're able to call them on the front end to let them know that we've verified their benefits, we know what the estimate of their out-of-pocket payment is going to be, we've talked to their doctor, and we're ready for them to come and have these services," she says. Experian Health's Patient Access tools make it quick and easy to find the right information and avoid miscommunications and delays that affect revenue preservation. Hospital staff will be grateful for the lightened workflow and improved outcomes for both customers and administrators. Contract Management One of the most common clogs in revenue collection comes from unclear contract management. Without the right data to analyze contract compliance, hospitals will struggle to get accurate payments from insurers and customers. Calvaruso says that one of the cornerstones of her revenue preservation philosophy is reducing the avoidable denials; Experian Health's contract management tools can analyze and audit contracts to ensure payer compliance and clarify anything that could lead to such a denial. Experian Health's contract management tools also provide patients with more accurate estimates of treatment costs. One recent survey of 54 hospitals found that getting a price estimate is a frustrating process for patients; another poll found that 46 percent of younger patients aren't paying their full bill at the point of service because they didn't have an accurate cost estimate. Having accurate contract management data can make a big difference at both the point of service and in later payment collections. Experian Health's contract management tools can not only increase the revenue a hospital collects, but they can also improve the financial experience and build better relationships with customers and insurers. Claims Everybody makes mistakes, but given the amount of stress that healthcare providers are under, it's more likely that they'll make mistakes on routine paperwork like claims forms, which can lead to the kind of rework that hospitals loathe and that eats away at revenue. On top of that, without a streamlined system in place, it's often unclear where the initial problem occurred, which means administrators can't correct the problem for next time. "We make sure we've done all the work in the beginning to prevent the rework," Calvaruso says. "One way we can do that is by using that lean process that assists us with identifying where we can improve." Experian Health's solutions helped Calvaruso develop that type of process. ClaimSource helps organizations prioritize the claims that need immediate attention, which saves time and reduces the number of tardy claim submissions. To avoid errors in the claims themselves, Experian Health's Claims Scrubber® makes sure clean claims are submitted the first time, eliminating the dreaded rework. Collections Submitting new claims after denials is aggravating, but bad debt write-offs are even more harmful to revenue preservation — it's money that the organization will never see, no matter how much more work is put in. The only way to ensure accurate collections is to minimize the risk of denial in the first place. As Calvaruso says, a key component of preserving revenue is moving back-office work to the front end. For collections, this means accurately verifying patient identity and analyzing litigation risks. Of course, not every situation can be accounted for, and there will always be issues with collections, Experian Health's collections solutions make it easier for organizations to prioritize their past-due accounts and pursue them effectively. No healthcare organization will ever receive 100 percent of the revenue it's due, but taking the right steps to preserve revenue can mitigate much of the loss and keep things running smoothly. With healthy revenue management, healthcare providers can better help the people who need them most.