Calling patients to request payment can be stressful and difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. Like every other touch point you have with a patient, the first and most important requirement for a successful patient collection call is to create a connection. 

Reform is rampant in the healthcare industry, from payment models to data security it seems there is always a new overhaul underway. But unlike many trends, patient engagement has remained a hot topic for many years. It is no secret that providing a great patient experience can improve your bottom line, so what is different about this trend that has kept it in the spotlight?

Your receivables management partner should be monitoring and adapting to the ever-changing regulations in both the health care and debt collection industries on your behalf. However, there are a few reporting best practices you should follow to ensure that your agency, and your practice, can maintain compliance. In this article we will discuss the most important information you should be sharing with your medical collection agency or RCM partner on a regular basis.

Healthcare business process outsourcing (BPO) used to be a strategy for cutting costs. Then for a time the BPO growth trend slowed as more organizations underwent mergers and acquisitions. Newly formed parent systems began to build Central Billing Offices to bring revenue cycle tasks back in house and to streamline their vendor relations.

However, the new reality is a need to balance the overwhelming need to keep up with a rapidly changing industry with growing patient expectations.

Both healthcare providers and medical collection agencies alike hear a common complaint among patients who have been sent to bad debt: “I didn’t know I owed a bill.” More than likely your healthcare organization has a procedure in place to send several statements over a period of time, and best practice organizations will also follow up early and often by phone.

But must you also notify the patient prior to sending them to collections?

Price transparency is a critical element for ensuring not only a healthy revenue cycle, but also patient engagement and overall organizational success. With the spread of consumerism in healthcare, more patients are expecting pre-service estimates and a seamless billing and payment process. However there is one primary factor in that process that can be less than clear: insurance coverage.

In healthcare, as it is in many industries, cash is king. Of course your financial team will deep dive into financial performance throughout the year, but on a regular basis many hospitals and practices assess the health of their revenue cycle based on cash flow alone. However, accounts receivable is only one metric to monitor. Here are five additional simple key metrics that have been identified by the AAFP to measure regularly to ensure the health of your revenue cycle.

When attempting to collect from patients it is easy to make simple mistakes that could cost your practice money. Financial conversations can be stressful, and in order to make it as comfortable for the patient as possible representatives may be too accommodating and make arrangements that do not benefit the practice in order to maintain the patient relationship.

“Stop harassing me!”

Hopefully you have not had this conversation too many times in your attempt to collect a past-due balance from a patient, but chances are you or someone on your patient accounting team has heard this before.

In light of evolving threats – like the recent WannaCry ransomware outbreak – the data security industry is seeing a shift in approach from traditional signature-based tools to more behavioral analytics. This is a particularly important trend for the healthcare industry to follow given the targeted attacks many systems across the country, and throughout the world, have experienced in recent years.