Having a strategy for billing and collections in a medical practice is crucial. Implemented correctly, it maintains steady revenue cycles and helps patients stay engaged with their payments. However, various health care challenges can compromise billing efficiency and result in more patient inquiries, which can be tough to manage.

If your organization is seeing a spike in medical billing questions from patients, here’s how to handle the situation — and how Millennia can help. 

Common Causes of Increased Medical Billing Inquiries

Medical billing can be complex for patients and health care professionals. Errors — like incorrect coding, duplicate charges or inaccurate patient information — are all reasons why your practice might experience increased inquiries. A lack of price transparency and unclear payment practices can also prompt more emails and calls from confused patients. If your billing process faces these challenges, collections ultimately take a hit and you become more likely to lose revenue. 

Understanding the root cause is the first step to finding a solution. Here’s a closer look at some common medical billing challenges, and how they increase patient questions and decrease efficiency: 

• Patient education gaps: Almost 40% of American adults find medical bills confusing. The less they know about their bills, the more daunting payments become. With so many variations in insurance coverage, it’s understandable that patients need clarification about their financial responsibility. 
• Vague statements: Confusing statements can also complicate matters — without a clear breakdown of services and corresponding costs, patients feel left in the dark. In fact, 37% are reluctant to settle their accounts unless they understand the charges, translating to more inquiries before you get paid. 
• Late payments: On-time payments ensure your practice’s revenue cycles stay on track. However, patients miss deadlines for many reasons, from forgetting the date to insufficient funds, making collections harder for your billing office. Late payments can also be symptoms of issues like billing errors or confusing statements. When following up on overdue accounts, your team will naturally face an increase in medical billing questions. 
• Multiple claims: Your office might have to juggle many claims from different insurance companies at once. Specific procedures might require different forms, resulting in more intense workloads, a backlog in your filing and decreased efficiency. Several claims for a single patient can also trigger more inquiries due to possible submission mistakes and complicated codes. Upon receiving multiple charges on their Explanation of Benefits, they may need clarity on what each claim covers. 
• Insufficient patient support: If you experience a sudden increase in billing inquiries, it might signal that patients need more resources to resolve problems independently. Patients often have many questions about how to pay or how much they owe, but without online guides or FAQ pages, they’ll need your office’s extra help. 

How to Manage an Increased Volume of Medical Billing Inquiries

Sudden bursts in patient inquiries can feel overwhelming, draining your organization of time and resources. The need to constantly contact providers for support can also frustrate patients, possibly weakening trust and increasing the chance they will seek care elsewhere. However, efficient management of medical billing questions can help your revenue cycles and boost patient satisfaction. 

Here’s how to handle medical billing inquiries and collect more payments: 

1. Use Transparent Communication With Patients

Clear communication is essential for patient education and seamless billing procedures. It’s important to outline patients’ financial responsibilities when you provide services. You can include these details in new patient paperwork to ensure they understand before beginning the care process.

Your office can also include signs or reminders to keep patients informed. For instance, you might give patients a timeline of the typical payment steps. You could include example dates for deadlines and explain the outcomes of missing payments, such as late fees.

Offering price breakdowns is another great way to enhance price transparency. Use infographics on your website or detailed posters to explain prices for typical procedures and basic services. That way, patients can understand what they might owe after their appointments. The more they know, the more they can engage with financial responsibilities.

Once patients have received care, prompt them to pay immediately or send automated texts or emails to remind them of their upcoming bills. In addition to clarity, timing is just as vital, allowing your team to address concerns before they become major roadblocks and escalate into administrative back-and-forth. 

2. Keep Detailed Patient Records

It is estimated that up to 80% of medical bills involve errors. As insurance companies are strict about claim details, mistakes can result in lengthy cycles of editing and resubmission. Long claim processing times can negatively impact your cash flow, with money owed to your organization stuck in accounts receivable. 

One way to combat this challenge is by rechecking and keeping patient records as detailed as possible, including patient names, addresses, dates of birth and insurance IDs. If you ensure these facts are accurate, you can reduce billing disputes and inquiries. 

More practices are turning to AI to help with data entry and claims processing, as these tools extract information from documents like medical records or insurance cards and enter it into billing systems without the need for manual entry. This technology can also ensure accuracy by spotting and correcting coding issues, reducing administrative burden and improving revenue cycle management. 

3. Improve Your Payment Procedures

With the right technology, support and resources, a simple, self-service payment process can result in fewer questions because it empowers patients to find answers on their own.

Here’s how your practice can enhance the payment experience to reduce patient billing inquiries:

• Offer accessible payment options: The easier payments are, the more likely patients will complete them without issues. Multiple payment options allow people to use the method that matches their needs. For instance, you could provide mobile pay, text-to-pay and chat pay. Or you could use online payment portals — these let patients view their billing details 24/7, boosting accessibility. 
• Give education and resources: You can help with the lack of patient understanding by providing educational resources. Explanations about insurance plans and common services can help patients make more informed health care decisions. By giving them more resources at the beginning, they might have fewer inquiries later.
• Make payments flexible: Hefty medical bills can be overwhelming, causing an influx of calls or even missed payments. By offering payment plans, you make it more manageable for patients to cover out-of-pocket expenses. Plus, online portals allow them to choose and set up the best plan for their budget, reducing your team’s workload while improving collections. These plans can also reduce confusion about balances, as they provide clearer expectations.
• Provide customer support: Even when implementing the above strategies, there will always be patients who need help. Dedicated support services let them connect with staff and alleviate concerns. Whether you use online chat services or a phone line, being open and providing the necessary information can boost financial transparency. If patients feel supported by their providers, they’re also more likely to become more engaged in their health care.

Can Outsourcing Patient Payments Help?

Outsourcing can help practices with managing medical billing inquiries. With these services, you can streamline many billing and collection tasks to resolve questions more quickly and maintain efficiency. Experts take over various processes, from sending easy-to-understand statements to facilitating convenient payment methods, simplifying payments for both providers and patients.

Millennia offers more than medical billing tools for health care practices. With us, you can integrate cutting-edge technology and personalized support to boost revenue, build patient satisfaction and create seamless patient experiences.

While early-out vendors lack the innovation to meet your organization’s efficiency goals and changing patient needs, Millennia operates as an extension of your team, delivering a more effective solution than traditional approaches. Our Patient Payment Solution is a feature-rich platform that improves patient payments by offering mobile pay, online payment portals, text-to-pay options and more. It also increases patient engagement with patient support resources, reminders for on-time payments and real-time analytics. 

As some individuals need more personalized assistance, our patient payment specialists are ready to answer billing inquiries and offer one-on-one guidance so that patients understand their financial obligations. Our services are white-labeled, which means we use your branding, workflows and scripts. All your patients need to do is reach out via phone, text, chat or email for a quick response. With a track record of resolving 97% of payment issues, our agents help improve satisfaction and ease your staff’s workload.

Handle Medical Billing Inquiries With Millennia

Managing many billing inquiries at once can feel overwhelming, but with the right tools, you can enhance the payment experience to maintain a steady revenue cycle. At Millennia, we have helped our clients increase their self-pay revenue by as much as 300% while achieving a 98% patient satisfaction rating. 

Explore our solution to see how you can increase payment collections and patient satisfaction. Request a consultation today to get started with Millennia. 

About The Author