January 6, 2014 •Brian Watson
Like a finely cooked steak or an impeccably tailored suit, the best patient statement print and mail applications are made-to-order.
Revenue cycle operations can differ significantly from provider to provider. When, how, and how often are patients billed?
Does a hospital use an early out partner for collecting on patient accounts within the initial 90 day window, or keep all non-delinquent accounts in house?
What special financial programs does an oncology clinic offer its patients – prompt pay discounts, credit-score-enabled payment plans, concierge treatment packages, or none of the above?
Is an immediate care practice focusing only on tried-and-true payment channels – think mail-in and by-phone remittance – or is it also sprinkling in emerging pay options like online billing and payment, IRV, and mobile tools, too?
Then there’s the patient side of the equation to consider. For example, is there a special need for statement translation that enables ESL patients to easily understand their bill? Or are there specific demographic or customer service issues that necessitate unique statement design choices – say larger-than-typical font size for a patient base that skews predominantly older, or an FAQ or glossary of commonly used billing terms to answer patients’ most thorny (and persistent) billing questions?
In short: there are a ton of revenue cycle variables – not to mention the financial needs and billing expectations of patients – that determine the scope and specialization of a provider’s back-end patient statement printing and mailing practices. Variables that an outsource print and mail vendor spending an hour discussing file formatting, lockbox details, and statement templates with you won’t have at their disposal come development time.
With so much out there that differs from provider to provider, it makes sense that the best-performing statement processing applications are those that are bespoke. Customized. That fit your revenue cycle operations to a T.
In this blog post, I'll be making the case for statement processing application customization; including highlighting the seven bottom-line benefits of made-to-order solutions.
Why Customize?
Effective print and mail applications are highly specific: built from the ground up to fit the needs of each specific provider, and using feedback and input culled directly from relevant stakeholders. That includes revenue cycle leadership, front-line service employees, and even patients.
Sure, effective statement processing programs share common traits. Patient-friendly statement design and clean, clear, and easy to understand billing is near-universal when it comes to best-class statement processing programs, for example. So is rigorous address cleansing using tools like NCOALink. Or leveraging CASS validation and pre-sorting to ensure fast, efficient statement printing and mailing.
But what works really well for one provider might not be the right solution for another. Healthcare providers come in all different shapes and sizes, after all. And the billing needs of a three-location clinic with a relatively homogenous patient base can differ greatly from a large, regional healthcare system that encompasses several hospitals, a physician network, and various affiliated specialty practices.
It’s not just about a discrepancy in the number of statements sent. (Although that matters, too.) It’s also in how they approach the billing process, in their revenue cycle goals and expectations, and in the patient billing and payment tools at their disposals.
That’s why smart statement print and mail vendors spend a lot of time listening. To your most pressing, keep-you-awake-at-night patient billing issues (not to mention pie-in-the-sky wants and wishes). To the statement-specific questions and problems most often fielded by customer service employees. To the usability concerns of representative patients.
All before digging into their toolbox of best-practice statement print and mail techniques to suggest smart strategies of their own. Then finally building a solution that’s the perfect blend of the two perspectives.
A round-peg, square-hole approach to application development not only limits your input on document design and delivery, it can also slow back-office revenue cycle operations.
Value-added statement processing tools like custom A/R reporting, encounter roll-ups, and financial assistance and charity care program integration programs (including prompt pay discounts and custom payment plans based upon patient credit score data) won’t be top priorities for every provider. But every provider should have the ability to make that choice.
The bottom line: your organization is unique. And with a singular patient base, specific communication goals, and a hard-won brand to protect and grow, you shouldn’t be forced to settle for a statement processing application that doesn’t fit your organization and its patient billing and payment needs to a tee.
The Benefits of Application Customization
• More Payment Options
With self-pay and high-deductible patients on the rise, care providers are increasingly offering a myriad of payment options to increase out-of-pocket collections.
Custom development enables your processing solution to integrate all payment plan and discounted pay data and even use high-level advanced programmatic calculations (like algorithms that integrate with credit scoring data to tabulate prompt payment discounts on the fly) to provide fully optimized patient financial correspondence.
• Early/Out Final Notice Dunning Integration
The prevalence of early-out programs has led many providers to offer patients only a single statement prior to sending their account to a recovery service for handling. And while this reduces bad debt and boosts cash flow, it can do so at the expense of patient satisfaction and brand loyalty/preference.
Application customization enables early-out and final notice statements to be produced using your organization’s regular processing parameters and base stock. Which ensures a consistently high level of bill deliverability, patient comprehension and brand equity.
• Better Readability
Having the freedom to move, add, and manipulate elements ensures a clean, concise service detail and top-of-the-food-chain bill readability.
• Less Confusion
Patients tend to be weary of the medical and insurance insider lingo culled from many legacy applications for billing purposes. Customization enables providers to sub-out overly-complex statement language for simple, jargon-free messaging. The result? Enhanced readability and patient comprehension.
• Fewer Calls
Patient calls can be a major source of extra costs. Bills that use variable personalized down to the individual patient-level help curb confusion and inbound phone calls, keeping your staff lean and efficient.
• Faster Payment
The statement is simple and explicitly to-the-point. The patient has no trouble getting the gist of what’s owed and why. The provider is paid promptly without any rigmarole. That’s the quicker-collections paradigm offered by uniquely customized, patient-centric billing.
• Patient Satisfaction
Patients tend to have a somewhat adversarial relationship with the billing process (which is a charitable way of saying they pretty well down right despise it). Readable, aesthetically pleasing bills go a long way towards cutting out the headaches and hassles: ensuring patients have positive, feelings about what is typically the last part of the treatment process.
Ready to learn more about how effective statement processing techniques – like full-on bill customization – improve patient revenue collection, reduce bad debt, and cut customer service overhead? Download our free statement design whitepaper, The Five Habits of Highly Effective Patient Statement Solutions.