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Train your employees to ask for money at registration

Patient Access Weekly Advisor, November 14, 2007

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In 1991, Mary Rutan Hospital in Bellefontaine, OH, initiated a cash up-front program to give providers a process in which to maintain bad debt and collect more revenue on self-pay accounts.

Officials scheduled an inservice for the organization's patient accounts employees to educate them about the importance of cash and credit card collections. It was the first step in developing a cash up-front program, which the hospital has perfected in recent years.

Initially, Mary Rutan found that patients were surprised that registrars were suddenly asking for money prior to services, and at first, registrars weren't prepared to combat these objections. Officials wanted to walk the fine line between an effective cash up-front program and maintaining a positive public image.

Mary Rutan officials used role-playing to train registrars how to respond to denials. The instructors gave each registrar a handout to review and study. In addition, officials encouraged every registrar to discuss with their supervisor situations in which they had trouble addressing a patient's concern or objection.

The training stressed the following points:

• The hospital is a business, just like any other, that needs money to operate. We need to start educating our patients about this topic.
• We need to get a commitment from the patients about what they will be doing to satisfy their responsibilities for the bill.
• We also need to realize that people do have financial problems, and that we can give them alternatives to help with these problems.
• If the registrar can't work something out, have the patient contact our credit and collections area to discuss their account. Hand out the department's business card to the patient.
• We need to continue to educate our patients about what we expect of them, but we need to accomplish this objective in a caring way. One reason is that many of our patients will be repeat patients in the future.

Provided by John Kivimaki

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