A Patient’s Overall Experience with Your Practice Includes the Patient’s Financial Experience
When asked what it takes to run a successful medical practice, a patient’s financial experience may not be high on the list for most providers. However, studies have shown that a patient’s overall experience is directly tied to the financial experience they have with your office staff or billing team. For the patient, their experience is not just the care they receive during an appointment or procedure. Their patient experience starts from the moment they make an appointment. It ends when they receive a statement of money owed. Therefore, having a billing team that can provide a positive patient financial experience is paramount to helping your medical practice succeed.
Billing Experience Is Often the First and Last Interaction a Patient Has with Your Practice
Patients come to your practice for medical treatment and advice. Nevertheless, their “patient experience” usually begins with registration, which includes a cost estimate for the procedures planned. Similarly, their experience usually ends with billing – receiving a bill, having questions about their bill, or paying their bill. In a perfect scenario, the bill would match the estimate and the patient would be satisfied with the payment options available to them. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. This negative experience can change the patient’s perception of the care they received. “Delays at discharge, errors in billing, or rude transport staff at time of discharge can generate poor patient perception even among patients who gush with gratitude for the medical staff who saved their lives.”1 A positive billing experience is critical to a positive patient experience and their perceived quality of care.
Ways the Financial Experience Can Be Negative for the Patient
The financial experience has many stress points that can easily become negative for the patient, thus impacting their perception of the care they received. The most common negative experience for a patient is a surprise bill or an incorrect cost estimate. This is now especially critical with patients who lost or changed their insurance, or who are dealing with unemployment due to COVID-19. Patients need an accurate and clear cost estimate before their procedure. A 2020 TransUnion Healthcare survey discovered that only “53% of recent patients received clear cost estimates prior to receiving treatment.”2
In addition to receiving accurate estimates, patients need to understand their financial responsibility. Your office staff or billing service must communicate this directly to the patients. From the same TransUnion Healthcare survey – “Only 52% of patients fully understood their financial responsibility for their recent medical bill.”2
Not only are surprise bills unfortunate, but other factors like an office’s lack of payment options or rude and unhelpful staff can all impact a patient’s financial experience. Providers must train their staff to have empathy towards their patients. They need to take time and go over any payment or financing options available to them.
What Your Practice Can Do and How ConsumerLink Can Help
While a negative patient financial experience is often unintentional, there are easy steps your practice – or the billing service you work with – can take to ensure your patients have a positive financial experience. Most importantly, before any procedures, your practice should provide an accurate cost estimate. This requires work on the front end. Office staff must make sure insurance files are always up to date. They must assign proper coding to the procedures that will be occurring. They must also be aware of other possible procedures that may arise with a given surgery or treatment. This allows the patient to have a full overview of what may happen and what charges they may receive.
Second, a medical practice can provide payment plans or offer financial assistance when applicable. Staff must communicate these options to all patients. Patients have become major payors today and they must be handled as such. There is a need for greater personalization in the healthcare billing experience now more than ever.
Your medical practice doesn’t have to take this on alone. ConsumerLink can help. We are dedicated to bridging the gap between provider groups and their patients. We focus on patient outreach and education to foster a better understanding of medical billing. Simply put – when patients understand their bill, they are more likely to pay their bill. This is not only empowering for the patient but also beneficial for the medical practice. We understand that patients often don’t know they have an unpaid bill, which means they often have not budgeted for that expense. Our team treats every patient with compassion and understanding. We offer them multiple payment options and can help them set up payment plans so that they can meet their financial obligations. Patients can pay on the phone, online, or even by mail.
In Conclusion
Medical practices have been through massive changes over the last year. One thing that must not be forgotten is a patient’s ENTIRE experience. Most importantly, a patient’s financial experience is paramount to a positive experience overall. Clear and accurate cost estimates, as well as payment plans and helpful staff are paramount to achieving this end goal. A positive patient experience is the right thing to do because it serves the patient. It will also help your practice. It will lead to happy patients, new patient referrals, positive reviews, and ultimately, better patient retention.
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