Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management and the Patient Payment Experience

Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management and the Patient Payment Experience

Healthcare revenue cycle management doesn’t have to be stressful for patients or staff members. Over the past two decades, major strides have been made to simplify the process of collecting and reconciling payments while also reducing barriers to getting treatment.

HealthPay24 is dedicated to serving patients and the clinics and hospitals that serve them. With over twenty years of industry experience, our team fully understands the impact of patient peace of mind on the financial success of your healthcare organization. And when patients have peace of mind, they are more likely to pay their medical bills, sign up for payment plans, return for follow-up appointments, and make timely payments. Our patient payment system secures payments to the provider early in the care journey by offering affordability options and allowing the patient to make a payment off the estimate with direct posting to the providers accounts receivable.

Our system sets us apart from the competition in a variety of impactful ways:

  • Pre-service and point-of-service payments — We provide tools that allow you to start collecting money off an estimate before a patient visits a hospital or clinic. Rather than waiting for the scheduled event, cash hits accounts receivable within minutes of payment.  
  • Seamless integration — Our system makes use of your existing workflows and processes to provide an uninterrupted patient payment experience. This reduces any friction between collecting and reconciling a payment and adds automation across every aspect of the payment process.
  • On-time implementation — When we set a date to go-live, we achieve it nearly 100 percent of the time. It’s our way of making the transition to a new payment provider as stress-free for our clients as possible. 
  • Customer service — We pride ourselves on being responsive to your needs. We have a 95 percent customer retention rate. See what our current customers have to say about us by checking survey results compiled by KLAS Research.

Treatment Options and Patient Financial Responsibilities

In the past, clinical staff primarily focused on collecting payments after services were provided to patients. Providers did not have the technology or capacity to collect on estimates or offer payment plans, so providers focused on improvement strategies post-service payments only. However, innovations in healthcare payment technology have allowed providers to not only accept pre-service payments but also offer payment plans, non-recourse loans, and flexible payment schedules to give patients more affordability options and increase the likelihood that a provider organization will collect on the entire amount owed. 

 True healthcare transparency in the 21st century allows patients to understand their treatment options as well as their financial responsibilities as early in the process as possible.

The numbers suggest there are headwinds to push through when it comes to educating patients and staff members:

  • 67 percent of healthcare consumers worry about surprise medical bills (Kaiser Family Foundation poll) 
  • 36 percent of patients reported researching prices of healthcare services, and 60 percent said they would seek answers from their insurance carrier rather than from providers (YouGov survey for AKSASA)
  • 36 percent of providers said they never talk to patients about their financial experience (West survey)

These numbers translate into some patients foregoing medical treatment because they believe they will be unable to pay their medical bills. This is a monumental problem facing the healthcare industry today. Another issue is the process of patient payments and collections after service.  The Academy of Healthcare Revenue estimates that providers have a 30 percent chance of collecting payment after a patient leaves the building. Our team understands that an early focus is crucial for providers. According to the same study, providers will have a 70 percent chance of collecting payments from patients if the request is made at the time of service. 

An Early Focus

HealthPay24 removes the bottlenecks currently existing in patent collections. Our advanced features simplify and streamline the collection process from pre-service to post-service by focusing on digital payment options, affordability, and streamlined reconciliation. The Patient Portal is designed to be the source of truth for the patient allowing the provider to send notifications on estimations, easy ways to pay a bill or multiple bills, account history, and affordability options (like payment plans, financial counseling, discounts, and non-recourse loans).

There is a 70 percent payment rate for patients that use a HealthPay24 patient portal. This means that 70 percent of patients that use our patient portal make a payment from the portal itself.

When payments or refunds are collected, our providers can reconcile these in real-time to both their accounts receivable and to the Patient Portal. Unlike other patient payment providers, HealthPay24 integrates with any EMR, financial software, project management software, and estimation tool. There’s no reason to wait a day or a week when reconciliation can happen instantaneously. If a refund is required, our unique system makes the refund posting of the payment automatically, which allows the patient to view the refund instantaneously and the provider can also see a direct reflection on the accounts receivable. 

A Digital-First Paperwork Approach

Perhaps someday human beings will learn how to slay the “paperwork dragon,” or maybe that’s too much to hope for. However, paperwork and time staff spend on the phone taking payments can be substantially tamed with the proper tactics. Our digital-first approach connects with patients where they’re most likely to be:

  • Text-to-Collect provides a contactless patient financial experience. Clinic and hospital staff can set up SMS messages to automatically send within our platform to collect payments from any mobile device.
  • E-Statements are automated and avoid the cost and hassle of traditional mailing. They can feature your organization’s logo, and patients can access them at their convenience.
  • Email and SMS Messaging offer flexibility for patients. They can decide how to receive information, so they are more comfortable with the process from the first estimate to the final payment.
  • Scan to Pay using Papaya allows patients to take a paper statement, scan it with their phone, and then pay it online.
  • Pay by Phone doesn’t get your staff off the phone, but it does allow your patients to feel comfortable giving their credit card information securely over the phone when making a payment using data encryption.
  • Pay by App allows patients to pay in a format that fits their lifestyle. This includes being able to pay using their existing PayPal, Google Wallet, Venmo, and Apple Pay accounts.

A growing number of Americans are comfortable with making digital payments online. 47 percent of consumers surveyed by Visa said they won’t shop at a retail store that doesn’t offer contactless ways to pay. The move toward digital payments is a function of speed and efficiency and can drastically reduce the bottlenecks that occur during check-in and check-out.

Contactless payments also are a reaction to the significant health concerns that arose during the age of COVID. Customer behavior has been shaped in part by the pandemic, which has spurred people from all walks of life to find new and safer ways to take care of business. According to a survey about digital payments by the National Retail Foundation and Forrester, “67 percent (of U.S. consumers) said they were satisfied with the experience while 57 percent would likely continue once the pandemic has subsided.”

However, cash will always be king for some people, and our approach to RCM services easily accommodates payments made by cash or check. This includes our cash management program that allows providers to digitally track the chain of custody for any cash bag from cashier to department to bank.

Payment Convenience is Key

We are committed to reducing or eliminating barriers patients face when interacting with our system. Our approach does the same for staff members at your organization.

Our system is unique because it can integrate with any software your team already uses for a variety of tasks, including

  • Registration
  • Billing
  • Estimations
  • Project management

It takes anywhere from 24 to 48 hours for most healthcare patient payment platforms to reconcile payments. HealthPay24 stands out from the rest due to our seamlessness and instantaneous reconciliations and integrations. We are device and processor agnostic, which means our system connects with the equipment you already have. Seamless Integration means that patients are not getting delayed information regarding refunds or payments. In turn, providers are not experiencing broken and manual payment reconciliation. 

Our user interface is a customizable dashboard. You have the option of configuring rule- and role-based permissions based on the specific needs of your organization. You’re able to automate a variety of existing workflows and processes, so staff can apply their time and attention to more pressing concerns.

Sound RCM services have the added benefit of freeing staff from time-consuming phone calls. Starting at registration, our system allows staff to initiate automated estimations and balance notifications. Patients get the answers they need, and staff members in your clinic or hospital get the flexibility to attend to other challenges in today’s fast-paced healthcare environment.

Efficiency is nothing without security. HealthPay24 makes your system’s security and compliance a top priority. For both your and your patients’ peace of mind, we’re dedicated to offering exceptional payment security and privacy by providing:

  • PCI Validated Point-to-Point Encryption
  • HIPAA compliance
  • Omni Tokenization
  • HITrust Certified
  • P2PE Compliant

Protection against viruses and malware is included to safeguard company-approved devices. We also provide secure connections to your network along with VPN or multi-factor authentication.

RCM Healthcare

Deciding to implement a new patient payment system is a challenge. There are so many variables to consider. No matter how much research is conducted, the cost, time, and effort required to make a switch can be daunting. We understand, and we’re fully invested in getting your organization, no matter its size, up and running as quickly as possible.

We have a 100% on-time implementation rate. If we say you’re going to be ready, then you’ll be ready. We make the same promise to large and small organizations. One of our largest clients, a huge health system in the midwest, was able to align 11 different billing and registration systems. We have tried and true solutions and mesh with a variety of vendors, so we can meet your specific RCM healthcare needs.

What we see at HealthPay24 is that providers come to us when their current system doesn’t deliver. When opting to install a new payment patient platform, decision makers must look at the long-term needs of the organization and choose to go in a different direction. As soon as the final call is made, our goal is to move forward quickly and responsively.

Ongoing Support

When we study your RCM healthcare needs, we’re also thinking far beyond installing your new system. We take the time to get to know what’s unique about your organization as we build your payment patient platform. All of that knowledge is available whenever you have questions or concerns.

We are proud of our 95 percent customer retention rate. We also have customers who are happy to share their experiences of working with us. Here’s a small sample of the kind words we’ve collected over the past 20 years of helping hospitals and clinics get more money into their accounts receivable:

  • “The vendor is terrific at keeping their promises. I have never had a vendor work so hard to make sure that all of our needs are met.” — Manager: Business Office, April 2022
  • “HealthPay24 really had that whole package that we were looking for.” — Angela Leffew, Patient Financial Services Manager at OSS Health
  • “The system reduced some follow-up phone calls for us. Before the inception of HealthPay24, patients had to remember to mail in a check or contact our billing department on a monthly basis to make payments. With HealthPay24, we saw a lot more payments being made on our website.” — Director, May 2022
  • “We get great service and good information from HealthPay24.” — Manager, June 2022

To learn more about how we respond to our customers’ needs, check with  KLAS Research. Their customer surveys are part of the transparency we strive to provide to anyone who works with us. 

We’re With You

We understand you have options when you’re trying to refine your RCM healthcare system. HealthPay24 has built a state-of-the-art system that’s backed by over 20 years of expertise. Over the past two decades, we’ve dedicated ourselves to offering unique services that differentiate us from the competition:

  • By engaging patients as early in the process as possible, we help them understand their financial responsibilities. They can enjoy the peace of mind that arises in the absence of surprise medical bills. And whatever payments they make are immediately available with our quick reconciliation capabilities.
  • By integrating with any EMR, financial software, and estimation tool, patient payment reconciliation can happen instantaneously.
  • By setting an implementation date and hitting it 100 percent of the time, we take as much guesswork out of the transition as possible.
  • By providing superior customer service, we hope that future surveys by KLAS Research will include a few nice words about your experience of working with us.

“Health is wealth,” grateful people say. Anyone who’s gone through a health scare, or that of a loved one, knows how valuable true wellness is.

It’s equally true to say, “Wealth is health.” Your organization’s long-term financial well-being is the very thing that makes so many happy health outcomes possible.

We understand your mission. We also have the experience and know-how necessary to help you achieve the financial goals that will allow you to serve your community for years to come.