Discover our 5 favorite tips for finding the right patient statement service to improve your medical practice's payment collection experience.
How you bill your patients can influence how quickly your patients pay their bills. As big of a role as patient statements play, they are often overlooked and misunderstood. Poorly designed patient statements can be confusing and impact the timeliness of payment collection. As a healthcare provider, whether in a small practice or large hospital, you should invest time and resources in patient statements. The end goal? To ensure these statements are easy to understand. Many practices handle this through in-house billing departments or by partnering with specialized patient statement service providers.
For those who choose to partner with a provider, it is important to get this right. Today, we want to share a few of our favorite tips for finding the right patient statement service, from customization and HIPAA compliance to payment choices and the ability to integrate with current systems.
Tip 1: Ensure Customization and Personalization
Every medical practice is different, and so are its patients and their needs. Rather than using generic, one-size-fits-all patient statements, it's best to customize them to fit the specific requirements of your practice and patients. Consider aspects such as the health literacy and language preferences of your patient population.
Receiving a medical bill can be a confusing and stressful experience for patients, especially if they struggle to understand their financial responsibilities. Personalizing statements with clear explanations written in patient-friendly language can go a long way. This can be achieved by:
- Providing a simple breakdown of charges
- Defining key terms like copay and deductible, where applicable
- Highlighting payment options and due dates
Personal touches to patient statements also show you value them as individuals, not just patient account numbers. When patients can easily understand their statements and feel the personal touch, they are more likely to pay their bills as soon as they receive them in their mailbox (or get a notification through email or text message that their bill is available to view and pay).
Tip 2: Look for HIPAA Compliance
Protecting patient information allows no compromise. With a patient statement service, HIPAA compliance should be your top priority. HIPAA sets the gold standard for handling, storing, and transmitting protected health information. It would be best if you did not work with a patient statement service that doesn't meet that standard.
Key things to check when you are looking for a patient statement service that is HIPAA compliant:
- Data encryption: Do they strongly protect patient information, including during storage and transfers?
- Secure storage: Do they take privacy seriously by controlling access to data, doing regular backups, etc.?
- Access controls: Can only authorized people access patient information? Do they track who accesses data?
- Staff training: Are employees trained on privacy protocols to protect patient information and follow HIPAA?
- Third-party audits: Do they conduct regular independent audits to ensure they are HIPAA compliant?
Don't take risks with a non-compliant patient statement service; the dangers are too high. Your practice would face major risks like data breaches, lawsuits, and reputation damage. To avoid these, thoroughly assess providers and ask about their HIPAA compliance at the beginning of your communication.
Tip 3: Offer Multiple Payment Options
Providing patients with a variety of convenient payment options can benefit healthcare providers in several ways, including ways that providers may not have considered. The more choices you offer, the easier it is for patients to pay their medical bills, which can lead to reduced delays and improved collection.
Convenience drives faster payments: When patients have more options like online bill pay, phone payments, auto-pay, and mailed checks, they are more likely to pay quickly. Sending eBill Notices via email and text, in addition to paper statements, can reduce the average payment time from 20 days down to 9 days.
Improved collection rates: Multiple payment channels also mean fewer missed payments. Healthcare providers see higher collection rates when they offer options like online, phone, text/email reminders, and paper statements.
Lower administrative costs: Online and automated payments greatly reduce labor costs for traditional billing and manual processing.
Better patient satisfaction: Flexible payment options also lead to better patient experiences and satisfaction.
Mailed Statements Modernized With QR Codes
While 74% of patients may prefer to receive medical bills by mail, the majority prefer to receive digital billing communications. Fortunately, there is a way to give your patients the reliability of mailed statements combined with the convenience of online payments. BillFlash has free QR codes on our mailed patient statements, making it easy for patients to view and pay their bills online on our payment portal.
Some of the benefits of QR codes on mailed statements include:
Improved Payment Convenience: Incorporating QR codes on mailed statements allows patients to access their bills and make payments conveniently. By scanning the QR code found on the statement, patients can easily navigate to the payment portal without the need to search for it or manually enter long URLs. This streamlined process also saves time and reduces the likelihood of making errors during payment.
Positive Patient Interactions: QR codes on mailed statements encourage patients to take immediate action regarding their bills. The inclusion of QR codes also makes it easier for patients to engage with their bills, view details, and make payments on time. This increases patient involvement and contributes to a positive billing experience.
Secured Transaction Process: BillFlash also ensures the security of payment transactions through our QR codes. When patients scan the QR code, the system securely redirects them to an encrypted payment portal. This protects sensitive personal and financial information.
Tip 4: Integrate With Your Existing Systems
Integrating your patient statement service with your EMR offers several key benefits. Automatically transferring patient data from the EMR to the billing system ensures that all information is up-to-date and accurate. This allows healthcare providers to start the billing process directly from the EMR interface. This, in turn, saves time and reduces the risk of costly mistakes that can be difficult to undo. Also, sending billing data back updates EMR records, ensuring that all departments maintain patient information.
When looking into integration, look for patient statement service features that maximize efficiency and improve the patient experience. Automated statement processing and mailing can save time and resources, and electronic billing notices provide patients with timely updates and reminders. Online patient payment portals also offer a convenient way for patients to manage their payments, and automatic EMR payment posting ensures that payments are reflected in patient records.
All of the above features work together to create a more streamlined and efficient billing process. At BillFlash, we understand the critical importance of this type of integration, and we take pride in being compatible with over 150+ EMR systems. Our goal is to make your life easier and get you paid faster. We work to provide a pain-free implementation process, regardless of what EMR system you may use.
Tip 5: Evaluate the End-to-End Billing Solution
A billing system covering statements, payment collection, and payment tracking provides many benefits. It improves efficiency by streamlining and automating the full process. This enhances cash flow through timely invoicing, reminders, and collections. It also gives practices greater visibility into revenue, late payments, and outstanding balances for better financial management, and allows better patient data sharing between departments for coordinated billing.
A platform handling the complete patient billing lifecycle also brings efficiency gains and financial benefits. It eliminates errors and revenue leaks caused by broken systems and workflows. An end-to-end solution speeds up billing so that practices and their healthcare providers get paid faster and improve their cash flow. It also provides real-time data as a single source of truth and makes billing a positive experience through professional, customized statements.
Elevate Your Patient Statements With BillFlash
Finding the right patient statement service is not just about improving collections and patient satisfaction; it's about securing the long-term success of your practice. By partnering with a reliable and experienced patient statement service provider, practices can ensure that their patient statements are clear, accurate, and delivered on time. This helps improve cash flow and demonstrates a commitment to making things easier for your patients.
You can take the first step toward revolutionizing your billing process by scheduling a demo with BillFlash. Learn more about our customizable, HIPAA-compliant patient statements and end-to-end billing solutions.