To collect revenue, engage patients at point of service, vendors on the back end
Patients who have a high deductible make up 25 percent of commercially insured consumers.
Collecting money up front at point of service and on the back end in collections has never been more important to revenue cycle.
Consumers are paying a greater share of their coverage out-of-pocket due to higher deductibles and employers passing on rising costs to their employees.
To make sure providers are successful in getting the revenue their due, two healthcare experts on Tuesday said what their organizations are doing to increase point of service payment and to collect on debt, during the HIMSS Revenue Cycle Solutions Summit in Boston.
The patient balance after insurance is increasing, according to Neville Zar, senior vice president of Revenue Operations at Steward Health Care in Boston. Between 2014 and 2016, this balance increased by 8 percent, from $264 to $285, he said.
Steward Health Care has nine hospitals and $1.3 billion in net patient revenue.
It brought bad debt down by 30 percent by doing a better job overseeing collection vendors, Zar said. This includes using comprehensive comparison reports on which vendor did the better job, monitoring collection activity, and knowing actual commission expenses, Zar said.
[Also: Push for simplified hospital billing can improve collections, experts hope]
Meet with every vendor every month and set a baseline for performance, Zar recommended.
Steward Health Care focused on both a higher and faster yield, gaining a five percent improvement, from 35 to 40 percent, in the amount collected within a 60-day period. The health system also set a goal of better customer service that included answering the phone within three rings.
Jennifer Andersson, director of Admitting and Registration, Northwestern Memorial Healthcare, looks at payment on the front end.
Patients are surprised by out-of-pocket estimates greater than $500, she said. Educate them.
"Patients want to know up front their share of the costs," she said.
[Also: Point of service collections on the rise]
Patients with a high deductible make up 25 percent of commercially insured consumers, a figure that is up from 5 percent a decade ago. The average deductible is $1,318.
"A patient with a $150 obligation only has a 36 percent chance of ever paying the full amount without a point of service payment," Anderssen said.
At Northwestern Memorial, financial counselors reach out to patients several days in advance of service to find out if they need help in applying for financial assistance.
Employees too can be incentivized in monthly goals that are rewarded with free movie tickets, a double lunch time, or the offer to throw a pie in the face of their boss.
In 2015, the year Northwestern Memorial HealthCare implemented the Epic system, it collected $9 million in point of service collections, more than double the amount from the year before. Yet Anderssen also credits another innovation that went live that year: credit card swipers.
"Credit card swipers was the thing that got us to tripling collections," Anderssen said.
Twitter: @SusanJMorse
