Don’t Lose Your Revenue To Patient Collections

© CureMD Healthcare

Revenue To Patient Collections

• The healthcare industry has gone through significant changes over the past decade, including increase in deductibles that has effected payment collections

• Amidst these changes, keeping a steady cash flow for a practitioner is nothing less than slaying a dragon

• When it comes to generating revenue, physicians cannot rely on insurance collections alone

Revenue To Patient Collections

• Therefore, they will have to redesign their workflows to meet new challenges of payment collections, as this adds up to a major chunk of their overall income stream

• Following are five effective steps that can help you streamline or re-design your workflow to improve patient collections

Revenue To Patient Collections

1. Create payment policy and share it with patients

• What good is your self-payment policy if your patients are not informed about it? Develop a comprehensive self-pay policy that is centered on your specialty

• Communicate your practice payment policy to your patients – explain to them their financial responsibilities and help them create a plan to pay their outstanding dues

Revenue To Patient Collections

• A comprehensive payment policy should:

– Communicate its clauses clearly with patients

– Improve relationship between patient and practice

– Ensure organized collection process

– Avoid legal implications

• A comprehensive payment policy:

– Is written in simple language, so that patients can understand and follow it completely

– Is comprehensive enough to include problems specific to patients that visit your practice

Revenue To Patient Collections

– Staff – medical and administrative – is on board with the policy. They are aware of every criterion in the policy, so that they can communicate and discuss the policy with patients

– Similarly, if your practice has more than one physician, then educate them about the policy and impact of patient payments on the practice to take them on board

– You include the diverse patient flow at your practice

– Translate the policy in all possible languages to facilitate your patients in understanding it properly

Revenue To Patient Collections

– A feedback from your patients to review and amend accordingly – if required

– You get the policy signed by your patients at time of registration, so that it has legal standing in case of non-payment or delays from patients

2. Collection at the time of new appointment

Scheduling an appointment is a phase that is often taken lightly by the practice staff. Don’t be casual about it; as this is the time that helps to determine the patients’ payment abilities and their financial responsibilities

Revenue To Patient Collections

• Take a holistic approach while taking down details of the patient – demographic and insurance – and verify insurance eligibility on the spot via Electronic Health Records (EHR)

• Ensure that you take down accurate details because incorrect information will result in delayed payment.

• While taking patient information, make sure you ask their:

– Contact details: home and e-mail address, cell phone and landline numbers

– Social security number

Revenue To Patient Collections

– Employment information, including contact details at work

– Insurance information including copy of insurance card

– Information of spouse in case insurance is shared

• Without further ado, verify the details from insurance companies so that the administrative staff can plan out the amount collected as co-pay and deductible at the time of registration

Revenue To Patient Collections

3. Opportunities to collect payments from check-in to check-out

Ensure at-time-of-service payments:

• Collecting deductibles and co-payments at-time-of-service should be a permanent part of the practice workflow. The best time to collect patient payments is during registration and just before the patient is taken to the exam room

• Once the front-desk staff loses this opportunity and the patient steps out of the practice, then it becomes difficult to collect payment at later stages

This is how you can develop the culture of ‘at-time-of-service’ collections:

Learn the art of asking patient payments:

– Teach your staff to ask the right questions while dealing with patients at the front-desk

– One question your staff should refrain from asking the patients is: “Would you like to pay now?” Instead train them in asking politely and professionally, “How would you like to make your payment?”

– This will give a clear message to the patient that the practice expects payment before service

Revenue To Patient Collections

Be flexible with mode of payment:

– These days, most people refrain from carrying cash with them. So, don’t hesitate to accept all forms of payments –cash, debit or credit card, personal checks

– You can further facilitate patients and increase the possibility of payment by setting up an ATM at your practice

Save credit card details for future billing:

• Some patients may hesitate, but most of them – usually the regular ones – will find it convenient to have their credit card details saved with the practice

Revenue To Patient Collections

Revenue To Patient Collections

– An integrated solution of EHR and Practice Management System is beneficial in this regard, which will enable the administrative staff to keep record of the patient credit card information and billing

Determine the amount of copays:

– The information collected at the time of appointment can be verified from insurance payers that will help to determine the copays to be collected

– However, EHR can give the patients’ insurance coverage on a single click. Once the front-desk has the information of the deductibles and the medical services covered, they can ascertain the copay to be collected

Revenue To Patient Collections

Include past payments in the bill:

– This applies to those patients who are negligent of their financial responsibilities or unable to make complete payments. At the time of check-out, have a meeting with them and map out a way to make maximum collections

On leaving the exam room:

– As the patient exits the exam room, physician should remind them to consult the administrative staff at check-out before leaving. This is to impress upon the patient the importance of paying their dues

Revenue To Patient Collections

4. Don’t delay the follow-up procedure.

– No matter how efficiently your staff follows at-time-of-service strategy, there are going to be unpaid claims and patient balance

– However, try to make maximum collections during the first week of posting the first statement

– The more you delay in following up the patient payment, higher the chances it won’t be paid

Call the patient:

– Physicians consider it the most effective way of recovering debts. If your staff has accurate contact details, then there should be no delay in reminding patients of their unpaid medical bills

Revenue To Patient Collections

– In order to make the call more effective, design a script to remind the patient in a polite, yet assertive manner. You can send automated text message from your EHR to remind patients of their payments

Remind them through e-mail:

– Owing to the debt culture in our country, likelihood is patients have prioritized their debt claims

– Therefore, Medical Billing staff should set automatic e-mails to remind patients of their financial responsibilities towards your practice

Revenue To Patient Collections Utilize Patient Portal:

– Implementing EHR system at your practice makes patient collection efficient and convenient for the patient and practice

– They can log on to patient portal, using the login detail provided by the staff, and make their payments. Practitioners can also save time and money by patient statements via the patient portal

Test and review your workflow

– This can also be called the ‘testing’ phase of the new workflow. Maintain a record of the revenue and patient payment collections during the testing phase, and compare with the previous record to know if the workflow has been successful

Revenue To Patient Collections• In case of unsuccessful implementation:

– Go back to the first phase to measure staff readiness

– Get feedback from everyone involved in the change

– Find any setback in allocating financial resources

– Identify gaps in designing workflow on paper and its implementation

• If your analysis reveals improvement in the process of patient collections, then make efforts to sustain the change

– Get feedback from staff and patients

– Reward your staff to increase efficiency

– Include staff in your success story

– Document the journey for future change

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