The Ultimate Guide to Improve Patient Payment Collections
Healthcare is a large evolving industry and is in fact often dubbed as one of the most growing industries of today, if not the most evolving one. The US healthcare industry has also seen quite a transformation as in most places around the world. The US healthcare, which was in its nascent stage nothing more than a simple system of home remedies and itinerant doctors with only some training to the complex, technologically advanced, and transforming medical sector that we are now familiar with.
The sector that has proudly evolved from a mere infrastructure to provide healthcare to the patients to the gigantic sector that is equipped to treat any major illnesses, regardless of whether the issue is is physical or mental, has shown such an advancement solely on the belief of providing adequate healthcare to the patients. However, it is also here to be noted that the hospitals and other healthcare units also remain completely dependent on the patients and especially on the collections from the patients. It is the interdependence that keeps both thriving.
Patient payments are as essential as providing them the care. This is because healthcare is one such industry that primarily thrives on patient revenues much like the patients, who sustain due to the sprawling medical industry that they can quickly get access to now.
Though healthcare payments are indispensable for the industry of healthcare and are certainly one of the major things that will take the industry forward, patient payments are still deemed to be a prominent, palpitating problem that is gnawing the sector along with others.
Yes, you would be shocked to know that the healthcare industry of now loses a significant amount of its income from various mistakes and other errors, including the dip in collection rates from the patients.
Billing mistakes cost over $68 billion to the healthcare industry today, as part of a recent survey. Now, along with billing, which is a significant contributor to the losing wealth of the medical practices, there are numerous other activities or practices due to which they lose out on their earnings.
Why are patient payment collections declining?
If you are a practice manager/owner of a practice, or are associated with a medical practice, and are eventually frustrated with the lack of revenues that your medical care provider is earning, then the days are here to help everyone get the service they deserve, but without compromising on the revenues of the organization.
Here is a glimpse into a list of 6 crucial things that might be working together or individually to drop the earnings of your medical practice down.
The decline in the overall workforce
The healthcare industry is a sector that seeps into uncertainties and emergencies. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus is one of such groundbreaking realities that all of us had to embrace but the healthcare sector was the sole industry that had to face it singlehandedly.
For this reason, the industry witnessed terrible changes in the industry with multiplying patients and workloads. Though burnouts are quite commonplace in the medical sector, where medical workers often leave either on a temporary or a permanent basis, the industry witnessed workers 1 out of 5 workers leaving it since the COVID-19 onset. This has severely impacted the medical practices of today and is challenging even the most popular practices.
However, with the increasing usage of medical office software, patient management, practice management, and patient payments solutions brought in by GrowPractice, the problems associated with leaving staff would be gradually alleviated.
Lack of patient engagement
Though attracting patients and booking their appointments efficiently is a challenging task indeed, the patients' journey to practice for healthcare requirements doesn't quite end with the arrival of them at the doorstep of a medical facility. It is to keep them engaged that happens to give practices the nightmare.
Over 60% of the patients would likely switch their care providers if they don't find them engaging. Patient engagements depend on a series of factors including digital access, equipment, patient wait time, doctors or physicians at practice, and much more. However, the lack of patient engagement definitely influences the revenues of the practices.
Increasing wait times
According to a recent survey, over 84% of the patients declare that the wait times they witness are the most frustrating thing they experience. The wait times for the patients should ideally be less than 15 minutes. However, as far as the recent study goes, the average length of wait times in the United States was found to be more than 18 minutes. These long wait times have a crushing effect on the practices, thereby resulting in lowering the practice revenues, patient retention rates along with affecting the attraction of the newer patients.
Medical billing woes
Medical billing is not only a crucial part of a practice, lying at the heart of the industry of healthcare but also impacts practice revenues dearly. The medical bills are dubbed to be something complication and time consuming, which results in quite a wait for the patients, but along with it, they are also spiked with errors on top of it. Yes, over 80% of the medical bills of today are marked with errors. While underbilling makes for a significant amount of losses in collections and practice revenues, overbilling might also result.
However, the medical billing woes are minimized with the emergence of healthcare payment processors and healthcare bill payment facilities that GrowPractice brings in.
Lack of the implementation of online payments
The shift towards online payments is rapidly becoming the trend. Besides, in the post-Covid era, payments are being online regardless of the industry concerned.Over 60% of the patients are going for online payment methods at healthcare practices. Online patient payments have witnessed more than a twofold growth since the pandemic. Therefore, this also implies that the medical care units extend smart online methods for healthcare bill payments and it is really doable now with the convenient and patient-first healthcare payment solutions from GrowPractice.
Patient surveys and reviews
Evaluating the performance of the medical practices is a go-to activity that you can opt for to improve the patient performance and grow its revenues. Here, measuring the practice performance with the help of genuine patient surveys and reviews that the patients can easily fill up whenever they wish with GrowPractice's advanced online facilities is something that would cut down the drop in practice revenues and boost its collections.
These are surely the 6 most prominent things that have the possibility of dropping patient payment collections down significantly. Some other factors that also demand fulfillment in order to raise the patient collections are:
Now that we are all aware of some of the significant reasons that might minimize the patient payment collections, you can definitely stay alert and monitor them closely to improve your medical office collections. However, if you are still inclined to improve it faster then we have brought you a list of essential tips that will help you magnify patient satisfaction and improve healthcare bill payments and collections efficiently.
Enhance patient payment collections effortlessly with these smart tips!
Though improving the patent payment collections is rather a challenging feat for the medical units, hospitals, and practices, having a deep knowledge of the above missteps should prove to be extremely handy. Besides, boosting the collections can also be fueled further by the efficient hacks that we have curated just for you.
Keep the patients' data secure and handy
The medical industry deals with the patients and in dealing with them and diagnosing them right, it has to handle loads and loads of data each day, data that are extremely personal and sensitive, concerning the patients, doctors, and the medical staff. This is why this data needs to be handled with extreme care. Keeping the patients' data handy is really necessary, but that doesn't mean that they can be breached upon.
According to recent data, over 78% of the patients prefer that they can check their own medical history and other information via a secure online method and share them with their doctor with absolute security A data breach is a common and punishable offense as well, severely hampering patient collections. So, it's always important that you go for secure, medical office software and systems that are secure with multiple layers, encrypted, and HIPAA-compliant that GrowPractice brings in!
Implement effective patient payment software
Online patient payment is essential to adapt to all the medical practices of now. This is the age of the digital and the medical units simply cannot afford to lose this chance of giving them convenient opportunities to pay online. Effective online payments not only help patients pay effectively but also help them realize that their medical care providers are here for the future. With GrowPractice you can further boost your practice collection with the help of easy, online payment systems that offers SMS payment links for the patients to pay for their services without a second's delay. So, no more loss of revenues. Growpractice promises to add over $60,000 more revenue per provider.
Offer flexible payment options for healthcare bill payment
Gone are the days when cash payments were the only options and included all the hassles of risks and incurring damages. Flexible payments are the way to go today with the emergence of online payments and other forms of digital payments that can be done simply via a mobile phone. We now have a range of options to make our payments online and the healthcare practices should also adapt to the times and offer their patients a range of simple options to make their payments as they wish. Not abiding by the flexible payment options might not be too kind on the patient reviews they receive because the patients absolutely love the flexibility they can get today in terms of flexibility.
Stay informed of the outstanding balances
The patients might also have outstanding balances on their accounts. Though these accounts' histories are usually there with the medical care providers sometimes they miss out on it. This should be avoided at any cost because overlooking such outstanding balances on the patients' accounts might result in a serious loss in practice revenues to repair which is extremely difficult.
Hire smart and savvy healthcare workers
Efficient healthcare staff or medical workers simply is an added boon for medical practices. Though most of the medical units are now opting for effective medical office software, practice management, and patient management software, the need for smart and skillful healthcare workers is never less with the ongoing staff crisis that has hit the industry since the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus disease. Hiring experienced healthcare workers that can adapt to the changing technology of the age is something that would really help your practice be future-proof along with growing in patient collections.
Attract more patients
Patients directly fetch revenues from medical practice. They are the primary source of revenues for the practice no doubt. This is why attracting more and more patients with the help of secure practices, digital tools, reduced wait time, and more, would help your medicare care facility see growth in terms of their payment collections.
Improve patient retention
As it is essential to attract new patients, retaining the old patients is also something that the hospitals and medical care providers shall never overlook. Patient retention depends on a series of factors including the ultimate care they receive from the patient appointments and how they book them, the behavior of the staff and doctors, the wait time they experience, mistakes and errors they run into, and more. So, focusing on patient retention would instantly help the practices focus more on boosting the overall patient collection and ultimately growing their practice revenues.
Leverage adequate followups
Proper patient follow-ups form an essential part of a healthcare practice. As soon as a patient leaves the doctor's chamber, he/she needs to be briefed on the next steps by an efficient healthcare employee and should be efficiently followed up for the next phase of their journey, which shall start only then. This phase involves routine checkups, tests, reviewing, and more. Following up can be a challenge, which is why GrowPractice now offers smart and integrated medical office software that helps follow-up be a breeze.
Stay transparent to your patients
Transparency is the key to building a successful business. Transparency in terms of healthcare costs and wait times stands crucial in forming the overall experience of the patients. Recent data reveals that over 65% of the patients admit that the cost of their services received at a medical facility and its transparency is critical to their overall satisfaction.
Make the appointments, check-ins, and more digital
Patient appointments, patient check-ins, healthcare bill payments, patient payment collections, and more are some of the most important factors that ought to be digitalized today. This is simply because more than a call of the age, the patients love it online!
Making medical offices fit for the digital age and equipped with smart medical office software, healthcare payment processors, patient payment software, and solutions secure with Growpractice is something urgent that you must be considering if you want to improve the overall collections or revenues.
Improve patient communications
Patient communication is an integral part of a healthcare service provider. Transparent and convenient patient communications help practices achieve more milestones and let them attain them faster. Proper patient communications help the practices ensure that the patients get the care they deserve along with retaining them for long. It boosts the overall credibility and the reputation of the medical practice.
To further enhance patient communications and make them secure, Growpractice brings in the revolutionary HIPAA-compliant two-way texting method. This innovative approach towards making patient communications secure and fruitful is something that most practices are now embracing and you simply cannot miss on it too. Such practices and more from GrowPratice have already resulted in raising the patient satisfaction rating by 97% and increasing patient retention by over 48%.
GrowPractice as the ultimate healthcare payment solution!
With all the benefits associated with online health payment solutions, it is undoubtedly helpful for the medical units, healthcare facilities, and practices to embrace online payments to make the payment journey of the patients easy. However, at the same time, it is also essential for the private medical offices, practices, and urgent care units to opt for healthcare payments companies that are trustworthy. This is well furnished by GrowPractice, a leading producer and distributor of secure and effective medical office software, patient management, and practice management solutions, including smart and easy healthcare payment solutions.
The solutions that GrowPratice brings to the practices are effective and the best options when quality and security are concerned. The tools and software of GrowPractice are even distinguished by many US Federal agencies that put their valued trust in GrowPractice. Besides, some of the unique advantages of the medical software solutions of GrowPractice are:
GrowPractice has already raised collection rates by 20% and has the potential for much more for your practice. So don't miss out on this chance to improve your practice revenues, secure your payment collections and improve them effortlessly with GrowPractice.
