Educate Patients of Their Healthcare Financial Obligation

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In years past, insurers (i.e. Medicare, BCBS) have traditionally been recognized as the healthcare payers; however, in the current healthcare landscape the patient is a significant payer for healthcare services. From 2002 to 2016 patient responsibility for healthcare costs rose dramatically, from under 10% to over 30%. This transfer of responsibility has created monetary challenges for providers and patients alike.

Prior to the patient becoming the payer, providers didn’t consider revenue loss related to patient payment a high priority. The priority has always been collecting insurance revenue; revenue loss as a result of not collecting the patient responsibility was considered acceptable. With patient responsibility still rising, revenue loss previously considered “acceptable” is the same revenue providers now require to be profitable to stay in and to grow business.

While this payer responsibility transfer has taken place in the market, the same transfer hasn’t been seen between providers and patients. Historically, consumers have prioritized medical bill payment at the bottom of the list of important bills to be paid. Due to lax patient collections protocols and initiatives, most providers give patients plenty of reason to not prioritize medical bills as a top priority; as sharp consumers, patients know this and leverage this to their advantage.

Provider consolidation, competition for brand recognition and brand dominance catapults patient experience to the head of awareness in many healthcare organizations. A significant part of the patient’s experience in interacting with the provider’s brand is the patient’s financial experience; to improve a patient’s overall experience, it’s important for each member in the healthcare setting to understand their role in overall patient experience, especially patient financial experience.

From the healthcare employee’s perspective, specifically those working in positions which interact with the patient revenue cycle (i.e. receptionist, registrar), many do not feel comfortable asking patients for money before being treated, and even less feel comfortable actually collecting the money. This creates financial and operational challenges for providers.

For healthcare providers caught in this confusing trend and collecting the industry’s average ($220 out of every $1,000), there is hope!

MILLENNIA’s patient engagement system works after insurance adjudication, but before bad debt collection activities, to collect an average of $650 out of every $1,000 owed in patient responsibility. Your operation can quickly have a full-service, private-labeled patient engagement platform that empowers your patients to pay their responsibility. Now you can focus on what you do best — seeing and healing patients — while MILLENNIA’s highly-trained team of U.S. based patient advocates works as an extension of your operation. You too can experience total patient cash collections that are 200%-400% above the industry average.