For providers, lack of payment options isn’t an option

Anthony Lucatuorto: ©Sphere

Modern consumers increasingly demand superior service and a frictionless customer journey. But health care is still evolving to keep pace with these growing consumer expectations.

This presents an opportunity as health care consumers of all ages who routinely use digital products and services when engaging with other industries are eager to incorporate these tools into their health care, several McKinsey Consumer Health Insights surveys have shown.

This trend, along with the larger health care consumerism movement, reflects patients’ growing preference to take more control of their health care, evaluate options, and make better-informed decisions – much as they already do when shopping for other products and services.

To compete in this era of heightened consumerism, health care organizations must find ways to give patients better information and transparency and provide personalized, convenient services. This might include options that cater to generational preferences for tasks such as appointment scheduling and bill payments, as well as empowering health care consumers with easily accessible information that inform decisions about care.

At a time when the patient journey is often fragmented and consumers increasingly are paying for health care out of their own pockets, it’s important for health service providers to minimize confusion and friction in the billing process, as a smoother experience can help strengthen patient engagement and support effective collections.

Fortunately, providers understand what’s at stake. Four out of five providers in a recent survey identified updating billing and payment systems and expanding payment options as key focus areas for their organizations. Embracing these changes allows providers to offer relevant payment options to patients at the appropriate interaction point, offering flexibility and convenience that align with patients’ financial needs while enhancing overall patient satisfaction.

By providing patients with digital tools for making payments, and full pricing transparency along every step of the patient journey, health care organizations create a seamless billing and payment experience that avoids unpleasant surprises for patients and uncollected revenue for the provider.

The consumer struggle with health care confusion

From a consumer’s perspective, the health care system can be very confusing. Between government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, private insurance, and employer-sponsored plans, it’s often difficult for consumers to know who is covering their costs of care. What’s the deductible under my health plan? Is there a copay? What's the cost for providers in network versus out of network? How much will I owe out of pocket?

Complicating matters further, health care consumers frequently don’t know what they owe until after they’ve received the service. Almost everyone has experienced a surprise bill months later and struggled to remember what it was for. They might even be unfamiliar with the entity sending the bill. Patients may not be able to tell what already has been adjudicated, what the insurance company owes, and what they owe.

This confusion also leads to a lack of collections for providers, most of whom operate on tight margins and can’t afford disruptions or inefficiencies that negatively impact their revenue cycle operations.

Building a clearer patient experience

Digital tools and price transparency can reduce patients’ uncertainty surrounding prices for health care services and responsibility for payment. It’s useful for providers to think in terms of the patient journey. How can you offer digital tools and transparency along every step of the way?

For example, check-in forms could include any outstanding balance from prior services, as well as how much the patient’s copayment is for the current visit.

Providers also should seek to capture payment information from patients and store it securely to facilitate future transactions. Tokenizing a credit card in this way has become popular in recent years as consumers recognize the convenience this method offers as well as security.

For providers, having card information on file makes it easier for them to collect payments on the spot, eliminating delayed or nonpayment. Another valuable tool for ensuring providers have an avenue for collecting payments from a patient is an account updater. When a patient’s credit card on file expires, this tool updates the card number so the provider can seamlessly capture payments.

Providers should create workstreams for patient interaction that are familiar to them as consumers. So, if a patient is on a provider portal to get a lab result or set an appointment, that person also should be able to make a payment during their session – just like they would if they were shopping on a retailer’s website where they had a balance from previous purchases.

Adapting to consumer payment preferences

It is imperative that providers adapt to consumers’ preferences to make payments in the form they prefer, whether that’s online, in person, or via cash, check, digital wallet, Venmo, credit card, debit card, or any other popular payment method. In today’s economy, where so much is uncertain, supporting a wide variety of payment options can help keep their revenue cycle healthy.

By removing friction along the patient journey and easing consumer concerns through price transparency, provider organizations improve collections while dramatically reducing bad debt and late payments. Further, delivering an exceptional financial experience can strengthen trust and foster long-term relationships with patients.

Conclusion

While health care continues to make progress, it has yet to fully match industries like retail in areas such as transparency and payment flexibility. We should see exponential improvements as more providers deploy digital tools to keep consumers informed and able to make payments at every step in their patient journey.

Anthony Lucatuorto is the CEO of Sphere, Powered by TrustCommerce