Every healthcare practice strives to accelerate patient payments. However, successfully collecting every balance on time is an impossible goal for any billing team. From financial pressures to statement confusion, there are countless reasons why patients fail to pay their balances. Yet, this is a crucial source of revenue for every healthcare organization, given the rise in high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) and heavier cost-sharing structures. Despite the hassle and drain on resources, these payments must be collected to ensure long-term financial health.
For physician-owned practices, this means allocating extra time and resources from an already overstretched billing team to track down patient collections. An estimated 50% of providers report challenges collecting on increasingly large patient balances — this burden is only expected to grow as the cost of care and patient financial responsibility continues to rise.1 With approximately 66% of providers waiting more than 30 days to collect after a patient visit, it’s now more crucial than ever to take proactive measures to encourage timely payments without damaging the patient experience.1
Six Strategies to Accelerate Patient Payments
To maximize receivables and build a more consistent billing workflow, arm your patient-pay process with these six proven strategies:
1. Tailor Your Billing Process to Patient Preferences
Patients in 2024 view their healthcare through a consumerist lens. If a patient doesn’t like your practice for any reason, they will likely not hesitate to switch providers. This extends beyond clinical care — nearly 48% of patients would change providers for a better payment experience alone.1 Maximize billing satisfaction by meeting patients where they are, determining what they need to pay their bills, and going the extra mile to recognize and accommodate their individual preferences throughout the billing process.
2. Personalize Your Billing Outreach
Understanding that each patient has distinct needs and preferences is crucial to building an effective payment process. Personalized communication can go a long way in fostering patient engagement and encouraging timely payments, as patients feel more valued and cared for when you take the time to provide a tailored experience. Utilize a propensity-to-pay model to custom-build individual billing processes with the outreach and payment methods that are most impactful for each patient, whether it’s text-to-pay, email statements, or traditional pen and paper.
3. Create Clear and Concise Statements
Patient statements are often written in a way that makes sense to billing staff. However, your billing staff are not responsible for paying you for your services. What many practices overlook is the power of a simple, understandable, and actionable billing statement. Trying to collect balances is hard enough after the patient visit — your chances drop from 70% to 30% after the patient leaves your office — yet most practices lower these odds even further with confusing and overwhelming statements.2 In fact, 75% of providers take more than one statement to collect a full balance.1
4. Offer Compassionate Call Center Support
An estimated 72% of patients report some level of confusion about their medical bills, especially when determining how the amount due was calculated.1 To help resolve this confusion and facilitate payment, leverage a highly-trained patient engagement team to address concerns and close knowledge gaps. Your patients want to know that you’re on their team, even when it comes to paying their bills. A compassionate and professional call center can make all of the difference to further build trust and provide every resource your patients need to submit their payments.
5. Provide Secure and Accessible Payment Portals
As technology continues to penetrate every step of the healthcare process, patients now expect to use digital solutions to handle their bills. For 75% of healthcare consumers, this begins with online payment options.1 Synchronize your billing outreach with a user-friendly, highly secure payment portal that is easily accessible from a quick link or QR code. Your patients are already using phones, tablets, and computers all day — bring your billing process right to their fingertips to make it easier than ever to pay.
6. Implement Technology to Maximize Efficiency
Digital solutions not only simplify the payment process but also free up your billing team to focus on engaging patients throughout the payment process — which, in turn, further increases satisfaction as well as the likelihood of getting paid. 66% of providers are adopting online, automated, and self-pay billing optimizations to reduce administrative burdens and create workflow efficiencies.1 This approach will undoubtedly pay dividends, as nearly 62% of patients say they pay recurring bills online when their balance is due.1
While these six strategies can help expedite time to payment, they aren’t enough to truly move the needle on patient-pay revenue. To help close the gaps, more physician-owned practices and hospitals are turning to a patient billing partner like PatientFocus to prioritize the patient experience from start to finish. With over 13 years of experience and eleven million patient engagements, PatientFocus can optimize your patient-pay strategy with deep expertise and proven tactics to collect your payments on time and maximize patient satisfaction.
Learn more about how PatientFocus can help your practice build a more profitable patient-pay strategy. Schedule a consultation with a patient billing expert to learn more about our patient-centered billing solutions.
Sources
- Trends in Healthcare Payments: Fourteenth Annual Report 2023. (2024). J.P. Morgan. https://site.instamed.com/Trends_in_Healthcare_Payments_Annual_Report_2023.pdf
- Williams, K. (2018, July 12). Address Patient Financial Risk in Pre-Service to Boost Revenue and Earn Loyalty. HFMA. https://www.hfma.org/revenue-cycle/financial-counseling/61208/
