Addressing the Challenges and Trends of Health Care Payment Collection

• Patient Portals

These online, self-service platforms give patients the ability to input credit card or checking account details and make a payment at their convenience. Especially when compared to the hassle of paper checks, many patients prefer the ease of making payments online. In fact, 79% of consumers in a recent survey from Instamed said they prefer to pay premiums online, compared to just 7% who want to mail a paper check.

• Check Payments

  Despite the fact that nearly every health care provider accepts check payments, it is not the preferred option for them or their patients. In fact, only 10% of providers who responded to Instamed’s survey reported that they preferred receiving paper checks from payers. For patients and health care providers alike, paying with a check tends to be more time-consuming and tedious than alternative methods. Unlike electronic payment, check payments require health care staff to deposit each check and manually enter data into their system. Plus, check payment collection tends to be associated with snail-mail invoicing—a process that involves extra costs and manual labor.

• Electronic Invoices

  Electronic invoices are sent to patients via email, often with a link to a secure payment form for inputting payment details. This newer bill pay acceptance solution is growing in popularity, and according to Instamed, 73% of surveyed patients would enroll in eStatements from providers. Especially as a growing number of consumers prefer to pay with credit cards rather than checks, electronic invoices are a smart solution for facilitating credit card payments. And for health care providers, electronic invoicing is a great way to automate account receivables and eliminate manual labor: payments accepted via electronic invoices can be integrated with health care management systems, which means there’s no need for data entry.

• In-Person Card Payments

  Accepting card payments in person at the point of care is a common practice for health care providers, but it’s not an option when the service cost needs to be billed to insurance first. When feasible, though, in-person card processing provides major benefits: namely, there’s no need to send out an invoice, and no concern of missed or late payments. Another benefit of in-person card processing is that the hardware it utilizes can often be fully integrated with health care management software —thus syncing transaction data with patient records and invoices.

• Phone Collection

  There are two main forms of phone collection for medical payments: an automated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) phone line, or a live phone line staffed by representatives who reach out to patients or field incoming calls. In the case of live support staff taking down payment details, it’s important to note that the staff must have access to a virtual terminal solution in which payment information is keyed in and processed. With an IVR line, payments are processed as soon as payment details are keyed in by the consumer.

According to a U.S. Bank Report, patients who use IVR to pay medical bills have an overwhelmingly positive experience specifically, 90% of those surveyed said that they strongly or somewhat agreed that IVR is a good way to be reminded about upcoming payments and balances due. Considering that many health care providers need to follow up more than once to obtain payment, over-the-phone payment collection is an important practice that should be taken into account when health care providers set up their payment processing system.