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Tips To Improve Patient Collections

How to improve your billing collection? This is one of the main questions that any medical practice or health care organization is constantly asking.

The process doesn't have to be complicated to improve patient collections. For this, it's important to educate patients and keep them in the loop about your billing methods at the time of service and in the most transparent manner.

In this article, we review some tips to improve patient collections:

Education and Transparency

One main concern is linked to the cost of services which can be defined as an in-person visit, a virtual meeting, or an appointment conducted over the phone. The method, mode, and terms of payment should always be clearly stated and explain to avoid any confusion or inconvenience.

Upfront Collections

The upfront collection is can complex since the list of fees may not be exactly the same once the diagnosis is made or when the treatment is conducted. This makes difficult to know how much a patient eventually owes to you. We suggest that upfront collections should be utilized for patients who don't have many complex medical conditions.

Seamless Patient Payment Collections

Healthcare providers devise and implement different methods for collecting patient payments.

It's recommended that any practice explains how payments are accepted (e.g., through cash, credit or debit cards, checks). This will provide the patient with a sense of confidence, and they will be enabled to manage their medical expenses better.

In addition, we recommend that you utilize a patient portal online to accept payments; this important and strategic practice includes the use of secure site in which payments can be made. It should be affirmed that this mode of payment leads to a 25-30% increase in patient collections.

Schedule an Individual Payment Plan

Depending on the patient's financial situation, it is possible to create an individual or case-to-case basis payment plan for patients. You cannot leave patients unattended if they are unable to pay the medical bills all at once or on time. We recommend that you utilize this option for your long-time patients and not for walk-ins.

Train your Staff or Outsource Medical Billing

Most recently with the Coronavirus pandemic, billing volume has become notorious for multiplying and requiring more billers.

You can opt to train your front office staff to communicate effectively when collecting any pending bills or outstanding balance.

On the other hand, you can proceed with outsourcing your billing collections. This process will reduce staff cost and increase your cash flow.

Have Credit Card on File

This is apparently the easiest patient collection practice. Once you are over with the patient’s medical responsibility, you will charge the card in the relevant file. 

Beware of the caveats. This practice requires you to keep the cardholder’s data. Further, for credit card payments, you need to secure the data through Payment Card Industry, which will encrypt this data and secure the password. This will cover all technical aspects for handling cardholder data.

NCDS: The Premiere Option for Medical Billing

Let us work with you to implement the right strategies for collecting payments from your patients. Our expert consultants will review your reports, trends, industry changes, and policy updates to provide your business with the right feedback and solutions to improve your entire billing process. To learn more about our commitment to excellence and performance for medical practices and healthcare providers or for questions regarding our tailored revenue cycle management solutions or other medical billing services, connect with us today.

References

https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/nine-tips-for-collecting-patient-balances

https://www.carecloud.com/continuum/4-ways-improve-patient-collections/

Questions?