Tag: collections
Look forward to a better bottom line—and increased patient satisfaction Many providers face a of lack insight into agent performance and call durations, as well as the ability to route telephone calls to representatives based on experience or inquiry type. Others use manual vs. automated processes to call patients with outstanding balances. Having the ability to both contact patients and take inbound calls using a cloud-based dialing platform can significantly increase your collections and penetration rates. Some platforms can even provide the ability to monitor agent activity for performance and take payments after hours when no live agents are available, and provide access to actionable insight into call volumes and durations, giving you the ability to make more strategic decisions and adjust process flows. Increase the effectiveness of your collection and patient engagement strategies by pairing online and print communication channels using outbound and inbound dialing technology. Experian Health’s new cloud-based dialing solution, PatientDial, arms providers with the tools and data needed to make strategic decisions and increase calling campaign effectiveness and the collections bottom line—all without the need for costly hardware and software upgrades. PatientDial assists with patient outreach for patient collections and patient engagement processes and workflows. Services include inbound, outbound and blended call environments and can accommodate both live agent and blaster (unattended) messaging campaigns. IVR services are available to route calls to the proper type of agents and handle payments after hours. When combined with our PaymentSafe solution, PatientDial enables patients to make automated payments via telephone, and combining with our Collections Optimization Manager solution further increases ROI by leveraging screening results and segmentation to drive strategy solutions. Learn more about PatientDial Read the Sanford Health case study
With the rapidly changing healthcare environment, many organizations are taking a hard look at their revenue cycle, seeking proactive ways to enhance both efficiency and performance in the era of value-based care. While the need to improve is clear, the opportunities for improvement may be obscured by myth and misperception. For example, consider the following long-standing myths about patient payment that, if not set straight, could limit your organization’s ability to optimize the revenue cycle and enhance financial performance. MYTH #1: All patients are equally likely to pay. Reality: No two patients are alike, whether you’re looking at their medical conditions or their financial data. Assessing a patient’s likelihood to pay at the earliest point in the patient encounter can help you design your collections efforts to not only increase the probability of patient payment, but also foster greater patient satisfaction. By leveraging data and analytics to segment patients, you can realize a proactive and customized approach to collections that takes into consideration a patient’s unique financial situation and payment history, and tailors payment amounts and collections strategies accordingly. MYTH #2: It’s hard to have meaningful financial conversations on the front end. Reality: Contrary to popular belief, most patients are receptive to a financial conversation with their healthcare provider. Patient access staff can serve as the gatekeepers of the patient experience, engaging patients even before their time of service with personalized and informed financial discussions about patient responsibility and payment options. With this unique patient data at their fingertips, staff can also assist patients who may have trouble meeting their financial obligations, checking eligibility for internal and external financial assistance programs and automating the enrollment process. MYTH #3: It\'s impossible to know what patients owe across a system in one look-up. Reality: Organizations can once again turn to data and analytics, using it to aggregate prior balance information from across the healthcare system. This allows patient access staff to view comprehensive open balance data as part of the registration process and use scripts to guide compassionate financial conversations. Even if these fact-based discussions don’t lead to immediate payment, the additional reminder that a balance is due often prompts a patient to action, yielding faster payment. Dispelling these and other myths is simple when an organization uses tools that leverage both clinical and financial information to increase reimbursement in an era of value-based care. These proactive efforts result in less risk, increased collections and enhanced patient satisfaction. That’s a reality that every healthcare organization should experience! What myths are you debunking at your organization?
Remember those commercials for the hamburger chain in the mid-1980’s? An elderly lady angrily shouted, “Where’s the beef?” in response to seeing a tiny burger on a large, fluffy bun. If that same creative concept were applied to healthcare today, perhaps the lady would proclaim, “Where’s the data?” when looking at the revenue cycle. While healthcare as a whole is moving toward using clinical data and analytics to enhance patient care, most organizations aren’t realizing the true potential of financial data to drive revenue cycle performance. So where does that potential lie? Quite simply, it lies in the vast amounts of financial data that healthcare organizations can access, yet do so ineffectively. By leveraging this existing data more appropriately, organizations can build and sustain margins while improving performance and enhancing the patient experience. Consider these three areas of opportunity to use data to drive the revenue cycle. Patient Access Correctly capturing and analyzing patient data at the initial point of contact allows an organization to reap large rewards, both clinically and financially. For example, correct patient identification reduces the risks of fraud and identity theft and ensures that medical records are being provided for the right patient, thus preserving patient safety. In addition, using data to provide accurate estimates of the patient’s payment responsibility up front and developing customized payment plans can elevate patient satisfaction as well as propensity to pay, allowing the healthcare organization to enhance collections and reduce bad debt. Claims and Contract Management Another area of opportunity is in payer contracts and claims. During contract negotiations, data and analytics help identify new service line opportunities for enhanced financial performance. Claims are more accurate and efficient when analytical tools review them before submission, comparing them with contract requirements and kicking out those with errors or ones that require further information. Consider the example of a healthcare organization that improved its recovery rate on denials by almost 50 percent by leveraging data to compare the amount received for the claim with the contracted amount. Collections Data and analytics also can be used to improve internal collections efficiency and profitability. Organizations can use data to segment accounts that share demographic and financial profiles, rather than simply looking at balance amounts and number of days open. This allows collections staff to prioritize work based on a patient’s likelihood to pay, which improves both collections and the patient experience. For example, a patient scoring in the “most likely to pay” segment may not need a call until day 75, while someone in a lower segment may need additional calls and help setting up a payment plan within the first month. Segmenting in this way not only increases the likelihood of successful payment, it preserves patient satisfaction at the same time. Realize your revenue cycle’s true potential by leveraging financial information to enhance performance. Moreover, marry these activities with efforts to use clinical data to improve care, and you can realize a comprehensive approach to elevating overall quality and performance. You’ll no longer need to ask, “where’s the data?” Learn more about leveraging data and analytics to drive the revenue cycle with this white paper: The new revenue cycle imperative: A data-driven approach to minimizing risk and optimizing performance.
Sometimes it’s all in the cards. And, in the end, it’s usually not a winning hand for the healthcare organization. In this case, the “card” is the patient’s insurance coverage and the “hand” is the increasing amount of bad debt that can be avoided. For example, a patient presents his or her insurance card at registration. The patient’s employer recently changed plans, and the patient mistakenly pulls out the card for the old plan. The claim is processed using the expired insurance information, and the payer rejects it and reclassifies the account as self-pay. After a time, the account goes to collections, and the patient is sent letters and receives collections calls. Both are ignored because the patient has coverage and assumes the provider simply made a mistake. Unable to resolve the issue, the provider ultimately writes the account off as bad debt. When accounts like this one are misidentified, the healthcare organization loses revenue, time and patient satisfaction. Misclassifying accounts can happen because of registration errors, changing insurance or patient miscommunication. When an account is misclassified, it increases the likelihood the account will turn into bad debt, especially when the account is misclassified as self-pay. Even when caught during the collection process, misclassification errors can impact A/R days, payment speed and cash flow. So, how do you play your cards right? Using the most up-to-date payer data, healthcare organizations can systemically search for current commercial, Medicare and Medicaid insurance coverage. An automated process reveals and prioritizes potential active coverage, allowing staff to rectify any mistakes and file claims in a timely manner. Staff can even proactively identify and correct routine data entry errors, such as incorrect birth dates or transposed Social Security numbers, before the claim is submitted. While the organization improves cash flow and productivity, there also are patient benefits. Using data to identify the right insurance coverage upfront makes patient interactions more efficient. In addition, reduced payment misunderstandings and unnecessary collections calls drive overall patient satisfaction. Curious about how your organization can have a winning collections hand? Use data and analytics to improve the accuracy of upfront business processes and enhance the patient experience. Learn about one of our newest products, Self-Pay Coverage Finder℠, and see how automating the search for insurance coverage can positively impact your organization’s bottom line and the patient’s experience.
