July 16, 2012 •Brian Watson
As a revenue cycle professional, you probably don’t need much of a refresher course on the price of postage's steady upward trajectory over the past few years. After all, you’ve likely felt the pretty-darn-substantial effect a penny-here-penny-there bump can have on the cost of revenue cycle operations when you’re talking about mailing thousands of patient statements every month.
Still, it’s worth considering the specifics: postal prices increased by $0.10 throughout the 2000s versus only $0.04 throughout the nineties. (And it’s still on the rise: the United States Postal Service instituted a $0.01 bump as late as this February).
That steady inflation isn’t likely to change any time soon, either. Postal volume has declined since the start of the recession in 2007 (by about 17%, according to a 2010 U.S. GAO report), and legacy costs are growing.
Which means revenue shortfalls will likely be offset by higher postage. And USPS officials are sending signals that even more rate increases are on the horizon, calling the current situation "unsustainable" and announcing that pricing for mail services can now be adjusted annually (capped at the rate of inflation as per the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act).
Mail Smarter and Spend Less
Because delivery of financial communication (and patient payments) is such an integral part of patient billing and payment, this trend definitely amounts to a particularly thorny long-term challenge. But fortunately for the health of your bottom line, there are a number of smart statement processing, delivery, and payment tools that can help you get a good handle on postage costs.
1). Postal Presorting: An essential postage discounting tool offered by the USPS, presorting enables more efficient statement processing by grouping mail by recipient ZIP Code. Statement processing companies that use presorting pass patient address data through internal mailing software that sorts all mail headed to a specific ZIP code destination into a bundle or tray before delivery to the USPS. The end-result: patient statements are delivered using first-class mail services at a cost that is considerably less in overall price.
2). National Change of Address Services: NCOA services are a great way to not only reduce postage costs, but materials, printing and processing overhead, too. It works like this: the USPS stores and shares change-of-address information for the 40-million-plus Americans that file move updates each year. Tapping into the most up-to-date address data available helps you reduce return mail (and the corresponding costs) before it enters the mailstream.
3). EBPP eStatement and Payment Software: As we’ve discussed in this space before, EBPP (online billing and payment software) is a great way to eliminate all statement processing, printing and mailing costs entirely for patients who opt-out of offline billing and into e-. Not to mention it’s gaining steam among patients as a go-to billing and payment method. And it’s pretty darn effective as a revenue cycle tool, to boot; accelerating bill delivery and balance payment.
4). Mail List Management: Legacy files aren’t always parsed in a way that facilitates effective statement printing and mailing right out of the box. Data and list manipulation enables statement processing companies to slice and dice a file for maximum mail efficiency: adding, deleting or modifying records, performing global list updates, identifying (and de-duping) repeated records, merging statements based upon household info, and using intelligent suppression logic. All so your list is formatted for lean, green and efficient patient statement processing and delivery.
5). Patient-Friendly Statement Design: Smart statement design is a simple, low-tech way to reduce postal overhead. Providing a patient statement that’s clear, concise, and accurate helps eliminate many of the issues that keep patients from paying on their first statement. And that, in turn, reduces the need for (and fees associated with) second and third statement mailings.
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What postage-saving strategies are you adding to your statement processing approach?