The cost of paper and postage in healthcare practices swiftly mounts with the increased number of patients. The cost can be high if a provider pays for each paper statement and mails one statement per patient every month on average. Continue reading to learn how to get the most out of patient statements and set up your practice to handle collection issues.
5 Tips for Patient Statements
1. Don’t Prolong Sending Statements
There is no justification for delaying the process of mailing patient statements. Every primary care physician must regulate their practice to send statements within a day. This is particularly beneficial given that collecting becomes less likely with time. After 90 days, delinquent accounts typically lose half a percentage point daily. Your practice should plan to send patient payments as soon as they accrue a balance.
2. Only Cover Statements for Cost-Effective Amounts
Consider establishing a limit for the issuance of patient payments. Only generate patient statements for balances higher than the chosen limit. Also, consider the expense of creating, printing, and mailing the statement. It helps you to understand when a balance justifies sending a statement. Another option to reduce costs is collectively sending patient statements to a family. By combining family members on one account, your practice can save statement costs and cause certain improvements in revenue cycle management. Depending on your patient base, you can decide whether or not this option is practical for your practice.
3. Understand What Needs to Be Included!
When patient statements contain enough details, in addition to the usual information on any correspondence—such as your practice’s name, address, and phone number—it is easy for patients to pay. This might comprise:
- Payment due date
- “Checks Payable To” and “Address to Mail Payments” indicated clearly
- The address of a website where a patient can pay online
- A section for patients to write credit card information to be processed in the office
- A phone number for patients to call if they have billing questions
Finally, if you assess finance charges, you must include a disclosure statement.
4. Keep the Information Concise
Making sense of the information in a statement can be challenging for patients. The information on their medical bills is confusing. Make the statements easier for patients to read. Additionally, the statement shouldn’t reflect credit because it always confuses patients with the amount they must pay. There is a chance that they will contact you and demand a refund. So, review credit balances and add them as necessary before processing statements.
5. Opt for E-Patient Statements
According to studies, more patients are choosing to receive their statements electronically. E-statements are also advantageous for practice as they save money and frequently result in faster payment. Carrying payment transactions between the sites containing healthcare data is valuable while avoiding cybersecurity dangers. Billing companies in Massachusetts often emphasize the shift to electronic statements to streamline the billing process and reduce costs.
4 Collection Challenges
Now that you know how to optimize your statement-sending procedure, look at typical collecting issues. Knowing these difficulties and the best solutions can make your clinic’s collections process smoother.
1. Time-Consuming Collections
Most collection practices have experienced expensive slowdowns. A patient with a sizable balance might pay slowly or not at all. Providing statements for minor balances skirts the cost-effectiveness line. Then, there is bad debt, which shall be properly managed to resolve the collection issue in a timely manner.
2. Failure to Confront Issues
In order to collect at the time of service, practices should be ready. 30% of patients leave without paying their bills. You may inquire about an outstanding patient statement for various reasons. Even the collection procedure may need to be improved. Pay attention to these warning signs that a patient may not pay:
- No response to statements or phone calls
- The statement returned as undeliverable
- Pay plan agreement broken—received a partial payment or no payment at all
- Request for pay plan extensions or a lower payment amount
- Excuses for not being able to pay
- The patient doesn’t show up for appointments
3. Rise in Healthcare Costs
Healthcare is becoming more expensive. While this is happening, balance write-offs increase. This results in rising insurance costs and out-of-pocket payments for patients. By adhering to the following best practices, your practice can provide patients with payment plan choices or early payment discounts:
- Create clear, well-defined payment plans and discount policies.
- Offer them equally to all patients.
- Use these options to work with the patient directly—a more desirable route than claims court or collection agencies.
Conclusion
The limitations, or the time to file a lawsuit after it happens, must be understood by practices handling aging patient balances. This shows the window of time in which medical debt is collected in the context of billing. State-by-state variations exist in the medical billing statute of limitations. Inform the medical staff about your state regulations to document patient statements cost-effectively.
Meanwhile, 88% of service providers still do collections using manual and paper-based processes. However, medical billing companies in Massachusetts are leading the way in transitioning to e-statements, with 77% of patients wanting to utilize them, but only 23% of consumers currently getting them.