Top 3 Patient Collection Strategies
Managing patient collections is one of the most dreaded tasks of any medical facility. Of course, most healthcare providers want to offer the best possible services to the patients, but that collection process becomes the biggest distraction. Yet, a patient collection strategies is vital for any facility or practice or hospital to stay running to offer the best services and ensure they can improve the revenue.
Though it may prove to be tedious to continue the practice, it is essential. Unfortunately, the patient collection is quite challenging and often results in revenue loss. For example, a study conducted by J.P. Morgan found that a healthcare provider fails to collect a balance of up to $1,000 in 30 days.
It indicates that the uncollected payments affect the revenue and eventually affect the practice.
If you have been facing a similar problem with your patient collection, here are three simple strategies to improve it.
1. Developing A Proactive Collection Strategy
The most essential and first part of ensuring a proper patient collection is to have a proactive approach when developing the collection strategy. It is not a standalone practice. Instead, it is the cornerstone of developing the entire collection practice strategy that is connected to different actions and sensibilities.
It requires involving the internal medical billing and coding team and admin staff who interact with the clients for the collection and the patients.
For instance, a proactive collection strategy plan would need you to customize the payment procedures while being flexible enough to meet future changes and requirements. It should include different medical billing and payment technology and multiple payment options.
A part of the proactive strategy would also require the facility to train the in-house medical billing and coding team and communicate them about technology and other payment awareness.
2. Offering Multiple Payment Options
As mentioned earlier, the proactive strategy needs to include different payment options. This indicates that the patients need to be made aware of different terms of payment methodologies. For instance, setting only one or two payment options and expecting the patients to adhere to those only, you are reducing the chances of getting paid. Instead, you should offer different payment options as a practice.
A healthcare facility that has a proactive patient collection strategies will have different payment options such as:
- Insurance coverage’s which co-pays can supplement, and deductibles.
- Debit and credit cards, cash, and bank number payments that can be done with the checking account
- Personal or medical loans against the line of credit
While these options should be offered, the onus is on the facility to ensure that the payment is collected and completed while the patient is on the premise. You are open to unpaid bills when you let the patient leave without completing the payment.
At times patients can make honest mistakes and leave, or there can be instances where they engage in fraudulent methods such as giving wrong information before going. So you must keep the patients on the premise until the bills are paid.
3. Using Latest Technology
Consider every platform and technology options that can enhance patient payment. It is especially vital to use the latest technology when you have patients receiving partially or fully remote services. Every patient should be able to access a simple payment platform on the same dashboard where they consult and get the treatment. In addition, the implementation of client-faced software is vital. By offering a seamless, automated, and streamlined payment option to patients, you would not only facilitate better collection but also develop a long-term relationship with the patient based on trust.
How To Implement These 3 Strategies?
One of the most comprehensive ways to optimize the collection from patients by implementing all these strategies is to outsource the collection to a trusted medical billing and coding company such as 24/7 Medical Billing Services.
A medical billing and collection agency like 24/7 Medical Billing Services has the technology and resources to optimize the collection procedure. They can help you in maximizing the payment collection with ease and swiftness while you can focus on taking care of the patients.
Read more: Everything You Want To Know About “Incident To Billing”
