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Provide patients with financial options

Patient Access Weekly Advisor, December 19, 2007

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Many providers focus too much on the size of the outstanding bill. They aggressively pursue the larger balances, and outsource the small ones. The medium-sized bills can get lost in an unstructured system that relies too much on the patient's willingness to pay, says James Yarsinsky, CPAM, president of Expeditive in Princeton, NJ.

"Providers just continually send out statements. But just sending out statements doesn't get the job done," he says. "It's a proven fact that hospital bills are on the bottom of the stack of bills that patients pay."

Some hospitals don't contact patients at all, he adds. "It's incredible how many providers just send out statements a month apart. Some never contact the patient to see what [his or her] intentions are."

Notifying the patient early on about his or her responsibilities and the organization's policy on payment arrangements is a winning philosophy.

Anyone who comes into contact with patients in the access area-be it financial counselors, registrars, or others-should hand out brochures clearly stating the hospital's policy.

Steven Orvis, director of revenue cycle services at Sinaiko Healthcare Consulting in Los Angeles, suggests giving all self-pay patients a 20% discount and an additional 15% off if they can pay off the balance within 30 days.

"This is not only good customer service, but it makes business sense, since self-pay issues and how facilities handle these patients are increasingly under scrutiny," he says.

Consider credit applications for patients who do not qualify for charity care or say they cannot meet the payment arrangement schedule, Orvis says.

"Use financial counselors to identify if patients qualify for governmental programs, such as Medicaid and/or any local or state programs based on income or other specific criteria," he adds.

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