Tag: patient experience
The world of healthcare, as everyone knows, can be complex. And in such a complicated system, solutions that simplify, automate, and reduce busywork can make a real difference in both patient satisfaction and workplace efficiency. Although healthcare is, by its nature, a high-touch field, there are several opportunities to allow automated software solutions to handle the basic processing tasks associated with patient management. When routine interactions with patients are automated, medical and administrative staff members can devote more of their time to the cases that need the most attention. Automated workflow solutions also simplify and reduce busywork to make a noticeable difference in patient satisfaction and workplace efficiency. Obviously, that outcome is desirable for all parties involved. It reduces costs, improves morale, and results in satisfied patients. In an ideal workflow environment, employees can personally attend to problem cases and resolve certain issues manually while an automated system handles the run-of-the-mill cases that cause administrative backlogs. Experian Health has worked hard to develop just such a system. We call it eCare NEXT®. Introducing eCare NEXT The eCare NEXT platform, using an approach called Touchless Processing™, is able to offload a number of key patient processes, including scheduling, preregistration, registration, and admissions. Touchless Processing is an exception-based system, meaning that it automatically flags patients who require manual follow-up with staffers. The system updates data in real time, and users can interact with it through either a work queue system or by responding to triggered alerts. Healthcare organizations using the system can automate up to 80 percent of human intervention in the patient management process — allowing healthcare staff to focus on larger, more important initiatives to improve the patient experience. And Touchless Processing doesn\'t just free up staff time; patients see immediate benefits as well. One of the biggest frustrations in a patient\'s experience is the inability to get a reliable estimate for how much a service will cost. The eCare NEXT system sorts through all the complex factors that affect healthcare pricing — which are often too complex for hospital billing departments to accurately estimate on their own — and quickly determines accurate cost estimates for both the patient and insurance. Efficiency results in lowered costs — and happier patients The eCare NEXT system cuts costs in other ways, too: by reducing staff training needs, by ensuring compliance, by enforcing transparency, and so on. The benefits of an automated patient management system can manifest themselves in all sorts of ways. Blessing Health System, based in Quincy, Illinois, implemented eCare NEXT and found that it reliably increased efficiency and accuracy in patient management: \"Experian Health provided our staff with a reliable, real-time registration error-alerting process. Our overall registration accuracy rate has improved significantly since implementing eCare NEXT. We now have the tools we need to be successful in one user-friendly application.\" Blessing\'s employees found that eCare NEXT improved dashboard capabilities and made it easier to view critical data, including missed estimates and copays. It was a clear upgrade over Blessing\'s previous system, in which employees manually calculated patient estimates. After adopting eCare NEXT, Blessing\'s point of sale collections increased by over 80 percent, its clean claim rate increased from 63 percent to 90 percent, and denials went down by 27 percent. And because the process had become so much more accurate and efficient, the average number of days an account spent in accounts receivable decreased by 28 percent. There’s no need to labor under an outdated administrative system that\'s certain to cause backlogs, errors, and intense frustration for patients and staffers. By offloading patient management work to the eCare NEXT system, healthcare providers can do what they do best: help people. For more information, contact Experian Health or check out our Touchless Processing whitepaper.
In the healthcare industry, transparency is everything — you want your patients to be as informed as possible every step of the way. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen with pricing, leaving both patients and providers unsure what the final bill is going to be. That’s where Experian Health’s Patient Estimates tool comes in. With this solution, you can provide your patients with timely, accurate projections of the costs of their care either before or at the point of service. By better preparing patients for their bill, Patient Estimates helps you avoid the underpayment problems you’re likely all too familiar with, leaving you more time to focus on providing the care that really matters. The power of accuracy The pricing process in healthcare is complicated. Constantly translating the shifting policies of insurers, suppliers, and partner organizations requires a level of attention that healthcare providers are rarely able to spare. But unless you thoroughly understand all the details that go into a pricing estimate, the only thing you can really offer is speculation. And patients are stressed enough as it is; the last thing they want to worry about is whether their costs are going to unexpectedly skyrocket once the bill comes. Each projection that comes from the Patient Estimates tool undergoes several data-gathering stages before delivering any results. Patient Estimates collects information from the patient’s insurance provider, including claims history and payer contract terms, as well as the hospital\'s chargemaster price. This data is automatically posted to a centralized work list, which can be customized by a healthcare provider depending on its needs. Imagine you need a price estimate for a patient who needs a common procedure or you’re trying to pinpoint the costs of a very specific procedure. You can narrow your search in the Patient Estimates platform to match your patient’s unique situation, and then you can easily pull that pricing information back up at any time. Most importantly, this data is equally accessible for your patients — you can print estimates in a variety of languages or customize scripts for your staff to read. As altruistic as this all sounds, Patient Estimates isn’t just a way to fulfill an ever-increasing obligation of state mandates for price transparency. Getting accurate pricing estimates slashes the time you’d spend manually updating pricing lists and scrambling to create an audit trail for a patient. By automating this grunt work and providing accurate upfront information, Patient Estimates can make your collections process easy and efficient — not two words you typically associate with collections. “The tool is really behind a lot of our success with billing and quick client payments,” says the Baylor University College of Medicine’s director of patient access. “Partnering with Experian Health has allowed us to be an advocate for our patients while also protecting our bottom line.” Patient Estimates isn\'t just a useful resource for patients; it\'s also an efficient tool providers can use to avoid age-old payment problems. After all, your organization runs on payments, and you’d hate to miss out on essential revenue because you didn’t give your patients accurate information in the first place. Bundle up Combining Patient Estimates with other Experian Health services can extend the benefits across a wider range of services. Patient Estimates connects with Eligibility, for example, to generate up-to-date benefits information that can inform a patient\'s treatment plan. It also works in lockstep with our Contract Manager solution to price estimates based on a provider’s payer contract, no matter how complicated it is. The College of Medicine at Baylor University is among the providers that use Contract Manager to analyze contracts throughout clinical practice departments. After adopting Experian Health\'s product suite, the school overhauled its internal collections strategy and generated more than 18,000 patient estimates while collecting $4.2 million in contractual underpayments it would have previously missed. Baylor has used its package of Experian Health products not only to streamline its workflow, but also to improve its patient collections rate and negotiate stronger contracts. You don’t have to draw a hard line between helping your patients and making a profit. In fact, the two go hand in hand when you take the right steps. With Patient Estimates, everybody can get on the same page. Contact our team today to find out how to boost transparency in your organization. To learn more about Baylor University College of Medicine’s experience with price transparency, please download this case study.
Patient responsibility for their cost of care is rising dramatically. By 2025, it’s estimated that 20 percent of all consumer earnings will go to healthcare costs. As such, consumers are increasingly wrestling with how to navigate the healthcare journey, and providers are seeking ways to provide more transparency around costs. To dig deeper into these shifts, Experian Health conducted a study to assess the patient healthcare journey. A summary of findings were released in an all-new paper, Embracing consumerism: Driving customer engagement in the healthcare financial journey. We interviewed Kristen Simmons, Experian Health senior vice president of strategy and innovation, to learn more about the study. What prompted you to conduct this study on the “jobs” associated with the consumer health journey? In speaking with our clients and top thought leaders in the healthcare space, we are naturally aware that our industry is ripe for change. Consumers expect a more seamless, transparent healthcare journey – from start to finish – but we wanted to dig in and understand more specifically how they view each dimension of the process. What “jobs” must they tackle on their quest to getting the healthcare they need? What’s working, and where are they experiencing pain in the process? We wanted to hear directly from consumers to understand their current situation and motivations, and simultaneously assess how providers are feeling about the state of healthcare. Tell me more about the “jobs-to-be-done” methodology. Why did you take this approach to conduct your research? Consumers purchase and use products and services because they satisfy one or more important jobs they are trying to accomplish. In healthcare, this largely centers around the goal of getting better: Cure the ailment, fix the broken bone, complete the annual well-check visit. Qualitative insight into the “jobs” consumers need to get done ensures that we start with a “needs” mentality when we innovate products and solutions, rather than an “ideas-first” mentality. In our work, consumer interviews revealed 137 jobs associated with a typical healthcare experience. We then conducted a quantitative survey to measure the level of importance associated with each of these jobs, as well as the consumer’s current level of satisfaction with their ability to get each job done. These responses helped us develop a heat map illustrating the greatest pain points and opportunities for improvement. And let me tell you, there is a lot of work to be done to improve the customer experience in health! Are you surprised to see that the financial “jobs” associated with the consumer’s healthcare journey to be the most painful for consumers? I think we all knew the financial aspects of the journey would be a pain point, but it was surprising to see just how dominant this pain was ranked across absolutely every financial element of the journey from start to finish. Ninety-four percent of consumers ranked financial experiences as a major pain point in their overall healthcare journey. Additionally, 98 percent of consumers ranked worrying about paying their medical bills as a “very” to “extremely important” pain point. We need to build solutions and processes that offer consumers more transparency around the financial aspects of the healthcare journey—and importantly, help them know what to expect at each step along the way. This will alleviate some of the stresses of the unknown and allow healthcare consumers to focus on what matter most – getting the care they need. Beyond the consumer survey, you also interviewed 22 providers about their priorities for creating a better patient experience. What did you learn in these discovery calls and face-to-face interviews? Healthcare providers want to see change as well. They are obviously focused on healing people, but they recognize the need to give focus to the marketing and business aspects of providing care. They told us they want to find ways to provide more clarity around charges, and education around how charges can change along the way depending on health discoveries. They additionally cited desires to measure the customer experience, improve their IT infrastructures, build customer loyalty and even link customers with charitable organizations who can help with healthcare costs and payment. They fundamentally understand that all aspects of the consumer or patient experience is important, and some are beginning to recognize that the financial and clinical aspects of healthcare may be more interrelated than once thought. The theme of “consumerism” bubbled up in both the consumer and provider responses. Can you expand on what “consumerism” means in the healthcare space? With the rise of digital technology, consumers have unprecedented power. They expect to be provided with a turnkey, individual experience that is fast and seamless. Think Amazon. Think Apple. Think about review sites like Yelp. While other businesses have been shifting their focus toward delivering meaningful and valuable consumer experiences, healthcare has largely stayed the same. But, costs are rising for governments and employers, and this is placing pressure on healthcare organizations to think differently about how they deliver value. Those rising costs are also directly impacting consumers, driving more shopping behavior and greater adoption of new online tools and resources (think WebMD) that give them more control. These shifts mean that driving consumer engagement and redefining how healthcare organizations interact with people is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Providers need to make the customer experience a priority. Our survey results validate that, and I’m certain the expectations will only increase in the years to come as the next generations enter the healthcare arena. To learn more about the survey findings, visit Experian.com/consumerhealthstudy.
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.
When was the last time you tried a new restaurant without reading at least one Yelp review beforehand? If you’re anything like the majority of American consumers, the answer is just about never. We live in an experience-driven world, after all, and whether you’re grabbing a bite to eat or trying out a new coffee shop, reviews are a great way to set expectations. But do patient reviews operate in the same way when it comes to hospitals? The answer is a resounding yes. Research shows that higher online ratings correlate with previously established metrics for evaluating hospitals, such as lower potentially preventable readmission rates. When it comes to overall satisfaction, patients are extremely perceptive, and they’re unafraid to share their opinions — good and bad. Yet Vanguard Communications found that about two-thirds of Yelp reviewers gave the top 20 hospitals rated by the U.S. News and World Report either a mediocre or poor rating. So where is the disconnect? One explanation might be that the areas assessed by U.S. News are too narrow. For instance, a hospital might rank highly for a certain specialty, bumping up its overall rating, but at the same time, its bill-pay system could be severely lacking, souring patients’ perception of the organization. Individual hospitals have the ability to assess all aspects of patient care — way beyond the scope of a top-20 list. The onus is on you to identify areas of improvement, and the best way to uncover hidden patient pain points is feedback. And those pain points are more than just the bedside care received, but are often related on the financial experience. Creating a better experience At Experian Health, we don\'t focus on tackling every issue in healthcare; one of our specialties is helping healthcare organizations process and collect payment. However, that specific aspect of healthcare has a significant impact on overall patient satisfaction. In a recent study, Experian Health found the highest amount of opportunity for improvement is around the patient financial experience, which includes things like price transparency, understanding one’s ability for health payments, as well as options to pay for care. When it\'s easier for patients to pay their bills, they rate hospitals higher. Unfortunately, the first big obstacle in bill-pay is that patients often don’t understand what they’re paying for. Even if the quality of care was excellent, when a patient is unsure how much he or she owes, it’s all too easy to get frustrated and give a poor review. El Camino Hospital, a nonprofit hospital located in Mountain View, California, saw this problem play out with its own patients and, in response, made price transparency a major priority. Experian Health teamed up with El Camino to address this pain point. We debuted a self-service portal, allowing patients to access and manage a greater amount of data while still making account management, e-payment, eligibility, estimates, and billing information available. The most exciting element of the portal for patients and administrators alike was the addition of the patient price estimator, which gives instant estimates on a wide variety of procedures. The response to this tool was so positive that patients immediately began using it, even before El Camino promoted it. There was still room for improvement, though, so we worked to gather more patient feedback by incorporating a feedback survey into the portal. As surveys and comments rolled in, we discovered that patients were looking for a wider variety of services in the price estimator, so we’re now expanding the options. This consistent, patient-centered approach has shown tremendous benefits already. For instance, because availability to the portal is on demand, patients no longer need to directly contact the hospital for estimates, which typically results in a 24-hour waiting period. Because the call volume has greatly reduced, El Camino is now able to provide far more estimates in far less time. While El Camino Hospital\'s portal implementation is still in its early phases, other hospitals have seen impressive results with similar systems over a longer period of time. At Cincinnati Children\'s Hospital Medical Center, for example, they worked with Experian Health to revamp their online patient portal to make it more attractive and easier for patients to use. After the launch of their revised portal, online payments increased from $200,000 to $800,000, and patient billing satisfaction dramatically increased, as enrollment in their billing portal jumped from 900 to more than 45,000 families in a single year. The medical center’s patients now use the portal to ask questions of their healthcare providers, change on-file insurance information, and schedule or revise appointments. These features also reduce customer service phone calls and other related costs. The 3 steps of the patient feedback process When hospitals empower patients with access to their individual data and listen to their feedback, everyone wins. Patient feedback is essential at every level of implementing a new service to guarantee maximum efficiency. A successful patient feedback process includes these three steps: 1. Identify where feedback is needed. You don\'t need to harass patients for feedback on every single aspect of their hospital experience. Instead, look at which services would most benefit from patient insight; then, deploy surveys in those areas. Gathering feedback on high-volume services should be a priority simply because they affect the highest number of patients. Similarly, services that routinely trip patients up can only be clarified by directly asking patients what’s causing problems. At El Camino Hospital, creating the charge description master (CDM) was the first step in identifying where feedback was necessary. The list provided a convenient overview, so hospital administrators could easily pick out which services were high-volume or problematic and address them immediately. Whatever the method, pinpointing the services that are particularly troublesome for patients proves much more effective than trying to elevate the entire experience with no direction. 2. Make it multichannel. Feedback is often subject to selection bias, meaning a customer is more likely to write a Yelp review when he or she is either extremely pleased or extremely angry. Offering people several options for providing feedback increases the chances that you\'ll get a good sample size. You can gather patient feedback via polls using various methods, including text message, email, phone, and paper mail. El Camino Hospital chose to add an SMS feature, building a feedback function on its desktop interface while continuing to field phone calls regarding more complex issues. Its choice proved rewarding, and patient feedback rolled in. Limiting your feedback channels limits the amount and type of feedback you receive, so the more options that are available to patients, the more likely they will be to share their opinions and suggestions. 3. Identify patients who need help and offer it. Patient feedback is only valuable if you act on it. Once you’ve identified specific problems, reach out and offer a solution to patients who expressed concerns. In conjunction with increasing transparency, El Camino Hospital set a goal to identify and assist at-risk patient accounts. After gathering feedback and information on these accounts, El Camino integrated a medical billing fundraiser to lend a helping hand. From there, it created alerts for other at-risk accounts to spread the impact of the fundraiser. By responding to feedback, hospitals can respond to concerns before they become more serious problems, as well as anticipate patients’. If one patient encounters a problem, it\'s likely that several more will encounter the same issue — if they haven’t already. If hospitals aren\'t listening to their patients, they’re missing valuable insight into their problems and limiting their scope of improvement.
Providers can improve the customer experience and bottom line with the power of data and analytics. Introduction In an increasingly competitive and consumer-driven healthcare marketplace, it’s no surprise that providers are working harder to acquire and retain customers. Higher out-of-pocket expenses combined with more choice and control in when and where consumers receive care are driving more retail-like shopping behavior. As a result, healthcare organizations are looking for ways to slow or stop customer churn, drive audience engagement, and redefine how they interact with their customers instead of seeing them through a clinical transactional lens. Providers understand that they must deliver a positive overall experience to maintain a favorable brand in the community and earn customer loyalty, key factors in maintaining their financial solvency. While there are many facets to consider in providing customers a great experience during their healthcare journey, there hasn’t been much attention paid to the intersection between the clinical and financial sides of this experience. According to findings from an Experian Health study among 1,000 consumers and select providers, the greatest pain points and opportunities for improvement around the complete customer healthcare journey center on the financial aspects, from shopping for health insurance to understanding medical bills. This means organizations that want to meet the new demands of consumerism in healthcare and improve the holistic customer experience must address the end-to-end revenue cycle. Typical consumer healthcare journey* *Consumers revealed 137 “jobs” or “needs” associated with their healthcare experience, with varied levels of importance, difficulty and satisfaction. Money matters give consumers high levels of discomfort Using a “jobs to be done” methodology, qualitative insights were gleaned as to the jobs, or microtasks and decisions, consumers associate with a healthcare journey. Despite the staggering number and complexity of different “jobs” consumers must undertake just to access the care they need, patients’ biggest dissatisfaction centers on the process of paying for their care. Of all the activities included in a consumer’s healthcare experience — from acquiring health insurance to making appointments with providers to receiving treatment — the top “pain points” relate to money matters. Specific issues for patients surveyed include: Understanding how much is owed for services and if the amount is a fair market price Making sure they have money available to pay for services Determining what financial support is available (e.g., a payment plan) Ensuring that what is owed to the provider is accurate Understanding the amount covered by their health insurance [click on image to enlarge] Providers also feeling the sting from unpaid collections, lack of customer service The most glaring opportunity for improvement in the patient experience comes early in the journey — price transparency. Patients are understandably confused about what their health insurance covers. They can’t always understand medical bills, and they have difficulty finding out how much their out-of-pocket charges will be and what payment options are available to them. Providers are also suffering — from unpaid collections, low customer satisfaction levels and an inability to address issues holistically. Here’s what providers had to say: We’re addressing the patient experience in one-off initiatives. Help us holistically improve the end-to-end patient journey. Providers said key impediments to progress include lack of clear and consistent prioritization, significant interoperability issues, and complicated organizational structures. They are frustrated by how hard it is to execute holistic changes efficiently. We need to measure our customer experience better. We want to standardize an approach that will drive progress and impactful change. Providers don’t have a clear path to move from customer experience as a concept to a measurable discipline. It’s a priority for them, but few are using a measurement system they feel is helping them understand and improve their patient experience. Patients are suffering, in part due to a lack of understanding of their charges. We want to set better expectations and make the charges and the value of our services easier to understand. Rising patient responsibility and the proliferation of high-deductible health plans drive the desire for full transparency in costs. Managing expectations at each step is crucial to providing the most accurate information to the patient. We’re not equipped to address customer acquisition and loyalty. Help us efficiently attract more consumers and keep them with us long-term. The focus has always been on healing people, with less attention to the business and marketing aspects of providing care. Providers need to focus efforts on acquisition and loyalty, but they’re generally understaffed and lack the skills to do so. There’s no doubt that healthcare organizations want to evolve and are thinking differently about how they deliver services and the value associated with those services. Ultimately, those that see driving customer engagement and redefining how they interact with their customers as a necessity, rather than a luxury, will succeed. Revenue cycle solutions for today’s consumerism environment Where to start? Key areas that can be addressed in the healthcare financial journey include: Comprehensive data – One of the core components of a patient-centric revenue cycle begins with the ability to use reference data to address duplicate medical records, understand a patient’s propensity to pay and identify social determinants of health. Incorporating this type of outside data into the revenue cycle won’t just create better patient experiences from the moment patients begin interfacing with staff, it will also optimize revenue for health systems while enabling a revenue cycle that puts the patient at the center of care. Patient identification – As hospitals must now deal with hundreds of thousands of electronic patient records, spanning multiple systems and departments, the traditional technologies for managing patient information are no longer sufficient. Using sophisticated matching technology and outside data sources can improve patient identification and prevent duplicate or overlapping records that result in inappropriate care, redundant tests and medical errors — as well as improving data accuracy for clinical, administrative and quality improvement decision purposes. Insurance reconciliation – Organizations can use automated technology to monitor claims data, real-time eligibility and benefits information, payer contracts, and charge description master (CDM) information to ensure that payers are meeting their obligations fully and achieve accuracy and transparency in healthcare costs. Closing the gap in payer contracts and reimbursement allows organizations to focus on providing transparent cost estimates throughout every patient’s continuum of care and helps patients know their costs so they are better prepared to pay them. Price estimates – Providing accurate patient estimates is quickly becoming the norm for health organizations. But to ensure patient satisfaction rates are being met, health organizations need to empower patients with a frictionless financial experience. By incorporating credit data into the patient billing process, health organizations can enable a people-first product design to price transparency and collections that extends benefits to more people by understanding the unique financial needs of each patient. Self-service portals – One way to engage patients is with an online and mobile-optimized experience that’s proactive, smooth and compassionate to empower patients to set up payment plans, apply for financial assistance, estimate the cost of care and review insurance benefits. Conclusion With so much to consider when addressing the evolving patient/customer journey, providers are well-served to start by improving their customers’ financial experience. As the link between customer satisfaction and a health organization’s revenue continues to grow, efforts to create a better financial experience are crucial. Using comprehensive data and analytics to power the revenue cycle and customer relationship management initiatives will allow health systems to encompass the end-to-end customer journey to ensure streamlined operations, measure and improve performance with payers, and provide accurate insights into each unique customer and their needs. The key to establishing this customer-centric mindset is embracing the power of data and analytics. From offering access to automated, personalized tools to providing price estimates to informing about charity aid options and offering payment plans — all these innovations help customers feel they can make better decisions about their care and how to pay for it. The result is more satisfied customers and an improved bottom line for providers.
Last year, a Kaiser Family Foundation study revealed that employer-based health insurance deductibles in the U.S. were at an average of $1,505. In 2006, the average was only $303. During this span of 11 years, the majority of responsibility for healthcare costs shifted from insurance companies to patients themselves, and many are still reeling from the sticker shock. Before consumerism and routinely high deductibles, healthcare providers focused most of their collection efforts on health insurance companies. Now, patients are a main source of providers\' revenue, and some organizations are struggling to fit their old revenue cycles into the new payment landscape. However, many patients aren’t prepared for the increasingly high costs of healthcare, so they may opt to delay their care until they’ve met their deductibles at the end of the year. This creates a volatile and unpredictable revenue cycle in which organizations are slow in quarter one and quarter two and then slammed in quarter three and quarter four. Other patients could forgo medical care altogether, cutting down revenue for providers. Both scenarios contribute to a less healthy general populace and a vicious cycle in which more patients need increased care but most of them continue to hesitate or refuse it. At Experian Health, we recognize and want to bring change to this unstable healthcare climate. Our healthcare price transparency tools take sticker shock completely out of the equation by stabilizing the revenue cycle and putting transparent pricing in healthcare and payment options at the forefront. Applying consumerism to transparent pricing in healthcare Healthcare might have been a bit slow to catch up, but modern consumerism has already changed virtually every other industry. Today, consumers demand to know what they’re paying for and exactly how much before any transactions are complete. They need payment options that make their lives simpler and the ability to manage their accounts conveniently online without jumping through hoops. All of this is possible for healthcare organizations to provide, but they must be proactive in helping patients overcome the burden associated with modern healthcare costs. From financial education to flexible financing programs, any organization can improve patient satisfaction by providing transparent price information and affordable solutions upfront. With that goal in mind, Experian Health offers a variety of healthcare price transparency tools that can set your organization on the path to financial clarity, education, and advocacy: Patient Estimates A high medical bill is stressful alone, but it’s infinitely more so when the amount of the bill far exceeds what a patient expected. Price transparency is paramount to overcoming that stress. It’s also mandated in several states and will soon be in all others. With Patient Estimates, you can deliver transparent pricing in healthcare to every patient before or at the point of service. Our Patient Estimates tool automatically generates estimates based on treatment costs, payer rates, and a patient’s eligibility for benefits. The platform takes the guesswork out of the process by automatically storing and populating this information so you can provide patients with highly accurate estimates as early as possible. Patient Statements When patients know what price to expect on their medical bills, they’re more prepared to pay them. Yet if they can’t read or understand the bill, they might still delay paying it until they have time to thoroughly address any concerns. To simplify the final bill, we offer Patient Statements software that combines separate billings into one simple, easy-to-understand statement. Patient Statements not only simplifies a patient’s bill, but it also helps you turn it into a valuable engagement tool. Every statement can be personalized with educational information about the patient’s condition, links to relevant videos and websites, and marketing messages for products that can improve the patient’s quality of life. Patient Self-Service Consumers are used to going online and managing their finances from a smartphone or computer. They often choose retailers based on this availability, and soon, most will choose healthcare providers on the same basis. Giving them convenient, 24/7 access to their healthcare accounts through Patient Self-Service portals will become increasingly more important for organizations to stay competitive. An online, self-service portal allows patients to view their estimates, manage their integrated fundraising accounts, pay their bills, and stay up-to-date with changes to their healthcare. Our self-service healthcare price transparency tools are also protected by highly secure payment processing technology, so patients can be confident that their information is closely guarded every time they interact with the platform. PaymentSafe® Collecting healthcare payments requires the combined security of protected health information and a patient’s personal and financial data. Our comprehensive PaymentSafe solution makes it possible to safely and conveniently collect payments at any point in the care cycle and from any department within the organization. Every payment is automatically settled throughout the system, as well, so patients are never double-billed. PaymentSafe also applies to every type of remittance — from electronic checking and debit cards to cash, checks, and money orders. In addition to satisfying information safety compliance standards, the technology gives patients peace of mind and encourages them to be more proactive in settling their healthcare bills. Transforming your revenue cycle to make it more consumer-centric and price transparent can seem like a daunting task, especially in an industry in which every small change has resounding consequences. At Experian Health, we’ve made it our mission to make that transformation easier by helping organizations provide the healthcare price transparency tools and payment options that their patients demand.
In a new whitepaper, Technology and Data-Driven Decisions Driving Best Practices for Patient Collections, Experian Health analyzes the results of two recently fielded surveys aimed at learning how organizations approach the process of obtaining payment from patients. The paper reviews both an HFMA-led survey and an Experian Health-facilitated one, discussing the current state of patient collections, as well as emerging best practices to improve performance. While knowing that organizations are working with varying degrees of success to offer more patient-friendly financial interactions, using technology and data to inform and drive patient engagement, Experian Health wanted to understand the best practices that organizations are using to elevate performance in patient collections. Our findings were published in this HFMA whitepaper which discuss the findings from these two research projects and validate best practices and offer unique insight into the successes and shortfalls of the patient financial experience at health organizations.
Manually cold-calling patients to remind them of upcoming appointments or of bills nearing a due date has never been an effective engagement strategy. On the contrary, such reactive tactics reduce engagement quality and can harm revenue cycles. It\'s important to remember that real connection empowers patients to be proactive in their care and improve their own outcomes, which encourages them to keep up with future appointments and medical payments. For modern healthcare organizations, maintaining this level of high engagement requires more than the automatic actions they’ve grown used to. Instead, the overall healthcare world needs more robust patient engagement to push forward and stay relevant with patients. Without this change, organizations are more likely to encounter skipped appointments, preventable readmissions, missed payments, revenue loss on several fronts, and poor patient outcomes. Fortunately, Experian Health offers a range of solutions that make it easy to engage patients in their care, improve patient outcomes, and create more profitable revenue cycle management (RCM) throughout an entire organization. Using patient engagement technology to improve care As previously mentioned in an Experian Health blog, patient portal technology — among others — is rewiring the technological landscape and capabilities in the physician and patient relationship. Portals are used for secure messaging by 41 percent of family practice physicians, and 35 percent of physicians also use them for patient education. This type of patient engagement technology culminates in our Patient Self-Service portal, which pools together data from our Patient Estimates, Patient Statements, and Coverage Discovery tools. The portal gives patients a single point of access to request estimates, pay bills, check financial assistance eligibility, and receive advice from doctors, nurses, and specialists. The above are just a few results from elevated, proactive patient engagement. Another perk is the portal’s unique ability to automatically populate patient-specific and payer-specific information into each estimate for optimal accuracy. This feature gives patients peace of mind by knowing what their exact out-of-pocket expenses amount to. When they receive a bill that matches the estimates they’ve been budgeting for, patients are more likely to adhere to payment obligations and return to a healthcare organization for future medical needs. This also makes it easier for an organization to collect payment at point of service and throughout the rest of the patient’s care continuum. Risk stratification for more successful revenue recovery For the first time in history, there is a growing convergence of powerful, internet-connected personal devices and massive amounts of analytical, social, financial, and behavioral data tied to individual patients. Experian Health’s timely patient engagement tools allow providers to tap into this convergence to revolutionize how they engage with patients at all points throughout their care. For example, by analyzing patient-specific financial information, this engagement technology can help providers identify when patients may benefit from financial assistance, especially for upcoming treatments. In turn, the provider can send the patient information about how to request for this type of assistance through an interactive portal with accurate estimates. To help reduce readmission rates for non-critical concerns, Experian Health’s tools can also help identify when patients may need unique, targeted engagement. For instance, patients with heart conditions can benefit from information regarding diet and lifestyle changes that improve cardiovascular health. These tools help providers determine the best type of content to send and the appropriate medium to send it through, such as email, text, or app notifications, according to the patient’s specific preferences. By working together with healthcare providers, Experian Health’s solutions combine highly personalized self-service with accurate price transparency and patient-risk stratification to proactively engage with patients. You, too, can be at the forefront of improving patient outcomes and RCM strategy effectiveness by understanding the changing healthcare environment. Utilizing tools, such as a patient portal and others, can position your organization to increase patient engagement and benefit from being a forward-facing healthcare provider.
