The government’s healthcare reforms are not just affecting doctors and practitioners but are also adversely impacting patients. The reforms are limited to payment initiatives, such as pay-for-performance systems, but these reforms have even introduced health-related insurance plans. With the increase in health insurance plans, one can observe an increasing trend in high-deductible health plans. This means that patients today are more responsible for their healthcare expenses.
However, this trend has benefited society, as patients today are more concerned about their healthcare and are actively participating in improving their lifestyles. However, with the increase in healthcare expenses and the burden on individuals, healthcare providers are more concerned with developing an effective system to ensure their patients are clearing their balances.
With the rise in insurance plans, patients have observed higher medical bills than usual, which are later unpaid. This has led to a need for improvised patient bill collection systems in the healthcare provider industry.
The following five ways can vastly improve a practice’s medical bill collections for any healthcare service provider.
Train your customer relationship officer or your front-desk manager regarding the boarding of patients
The customer relationship officer is the person the patients will talk to regarding any appointment boarding or payment issues. Therefore, you must train them to collect all patient dues, and they should always verify insurance coverage. The customer relationship officer’s primary duty is to inform patients of their dues and tell them about their payment options. This will keep things clear between you and your patients before they come for their next appointment.
Another successful idea is to create a script for your hospital staff to know how to deal with customers in case of overdue bills. This training will help your team learn how to deal with such patients courteously and respectfully.
Keep your payment policies transparent
Healthcare providers often unintentionally blindside their patients regarding their medical invoices, and usually, costs are not included in the patient’s budget. This is why it becomes difficult for a healthcare provider to collect medical payments from patients as they do not have enough planned savings. Hospitals and healthcare service providers must keep patients informed about the total cost of all procedures so that they can decide if they can afford it or not.
This transparency is not just limited to the cost of medical procedures but should also include payment policies. A healthcare service provider can put signs in their waiting rooms stating their payment policies. Medical practitioners must remain clear regarding what they expect from their patients concerning payments. To eradicate confusion, every hospital’s staff member and customer relationship officer should know all policies to deliver clear, transparent information to their patients.
Verify insurance coverage in advance
Healthcare providers must verify the insurance coverage of their patients before starting their medical procedures. Insurance coverage would include the medical services included in their package and the patient’s financial liability. By getting the proper information regarding insurance coverage, healthcare providers will avoid less debt from their patients.
Get an estimate of the total medical cost for the patients
Once you are aware of the insurance coverage of your patient and its complete details, you should estimate the total cost of all services that a patient is looking to have performed to analyze whether their plan would cover all of these services or if the patient will be required to pay an extra bill. Although the cost estimation process is long, it has many benefits, such as:
- Increasing satisfaction of patients
- Minimizing the days of receivables
- Improving payment collections
- Improving the payment process for patients
Healthcare providers should improve payment processes by introducing maximum payment options to collect payments from patients effectively. Including cash alternatives, such as credit cards and online payment options, will not stall the payment process. It has been observed that online payment methods attract more patients to healthcare service providers as patients sometimes are out of cash and prefer using credit cards to pay their bills.
Incorporate proper billing software
Manually bookkeeping all payments and bills is a challenging process. The more difficult task is managing the debtor account receivables. Therefore, one should have billing software for their medical services as this provides a platform with comprehensive solutions. This software will record and generate bills and record all your paid and unpaid bills, late fee charges, and customers who still have yet to pay their dues. Using such billing software, you can quickly get their personal information and politely remind them regarding their outstanding dues.
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