BBT Ep. 5: Outsourcing Patient Financing

In this episode we discuss an article from Healthcare Finance that highlights a study showing that most providers are seeking to outsource patient financing.

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Transcript: 

Welcome to the Better Billing Today podcast, where we talk to owners and operators and their staff about everything medical billing. We're here to help you improve your cash flow, streamline your operations, and improve the patient financial experience. If you're involved in charging patients or collecting money or working with these awful insurance companies, this is the podcast for you. On this show we talk about revenue cycle management, HIPAA compliance, PCI and also the changing technologies in the industry that are making the patient financial experience better, but also new technologies that you may not be aware of that you can start leveraging today.

If you're new to the podcast, my name is Adam Welchel, I'm your host. Our website, betterbillingtoday.com will have the links and the resources and the downloads that we mentioned in this podcast. Also we're listed on every major podcasting platform for your convenience, and remember to send in your questions and stories to office@betterbillingtoday.com.

Today I wanna share with you an article that came out in Healthcare Finance News. This is a fantastic article that is talking about the shift for small and large practices, making the move. To outsourcing their revenue cycle management for two big reasons. One of them is technology and the other one is customer service.

So I wanna share with you some excerpts from this article. The link to this article is in the show notes, and you can find it at betterbillingtoday.com. In the last paragraph of this article, a surprising fact was written here, says Most of the bad debt historically is attributed to those uninsured patients.

But actually recently, this bad debt has actually been associated with patients who do have insurance, which means that uninsured patients are not the reasons that you are not getting paid. It could be with the insurance company, it could be a dispute in the billing, but the article doesn't specify why the bad debt is increasing with patients who have insurance.

But what is interesting is that there are new options for providers who are partnering. With outsourced medical billing companies or revenue cycle management companies, and these outsourced medical billing companies are actually bringing new value to the table. For example, I run a company called Spark Billing Services; it's an outsourced medical billing service provider. And what's happening in this industry is that vendors like us are bringing more value to the owner operators and the healthcare providers by not just handling the billing. But also giving your patients a financing option on their unpaid bills.

For example, if the patient pay portion, or their obligation of this bill is $2,500, we can actually work with them and finance that $2,500, meaning we can close the bill on your side, the provider, and we can work directly with the patient. We can set up secure payment platforms with card on file, with digital wallets, with alternative payment methods that are not traditionally available to the average owner operator small medical practice. So by partnering with a vendor like Spark Billing for example you actually open up yourself to more opportunities to use technology and to provide a greater financial experience for that patient.

Let me just read to you some of these these excerpts, CWH found that only 42% of the providers are satisfied with their current patient payment options, meaning that 58% of current providers that they surveyed are looking for ways to improve the patient financial experience by using payment technology options, financing options, and outsourcing their billing. These are big. These are big companies doing this.

But if you're an owner operator and you're not leveraging technology, and you're not attracting the new generation of patients that you're going to be serving and giving them options like card on file, digital wallets, and payment options to finance certain procedures that are over $2,000 You're going to miss an option, an opportunity to serve these patients because they will find these options somewhere else.

The good news for you is that you have these options and you don't have to invest the time and the money in building them. Partnering with a revenue cycle management company like Spark Billing for example. These outsourcing, medical billing companies should be offering you this value. Now, if we don't work with you, make sure you are finding.

The outsourced medical billing company that will do this for you and make sure that they are very secure in their systems. They're PCI compliant, they have cybersecurity. They're not just adding a payment gateway. You need to be looking for a medical billing company that is tech savvy, secure, and has high customer service.

In fact this section in the article here says 68% of the of the executives. Look for excellent customer service as one of their top three purchasing considerations. So technology and customer service. The two biggest decision makers. And I think if I were to guess security would be that third one.

We have an episode, I think it's episode three with our friend Josh from Sittadel who talks about the importance of cybersecurity. And in fact, we demystified some of those common misconceptions around cybersecurity and what that really means. But if I had to guess what that third one was, it would be security.

So you have technology, customer service, and security. When you're outsourcing your medical billing, these this article goes on to describe the reputational risk. When you are outsourcing your medical billing, you're not just outsourcing a task, you are asking your patient to interact with staff that you do not know.

So your reputation is at risk. And I would really encourage you that if you're outsourcing your medical billing, that you do some what do they call it when you call? Secret shopping that you do some secret shopping and you call the medical billing company and pretend you're a patient and bring up a dispute.

Try to create opportunities for them to not serve you in the best way they could, and see what your patient might go through as a secret shopper. Customer service is a very high priority for the best medical billing services out there as is technology and security. So definitely look at those three options when you're looking at moving your billing outside of the office.

The last thing this article touches on is that there's a firm, a consulting group called Crow, and they're a consulting and technology firm. They found that patients that owe more than $7,500 have an increasing chance of never being collected. So their collectibility drops off.

And that means that if you are partnering with an outsourced medical billing company who does offer financing, your chances of getting paid. Increase significantly if you give them different options. If you're just asking for cash and it's $7,500 or more, the chances of you collecting that are very low.

So this decision to outsource is not just about saving money on operations or just focusing on service, it's more about increasing the cash flow, increasing the security of your payments. Giving more options and using technology, and again, creating a better patient financial experience. The link to this article is on our website, betterbillingtoday.com.

Remember to send us any questions or share your stories. At office@betterbillingtoday.com. Again, my name is Adam. Thank you for joining us on this podcast of Better Billing Today. We are on all of the major platforms, so visit our website, download the resources that we've made available to you for this episode, and we'll see you on the next one.

News Article: https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/most-providers-seeking-outsource-patient-financing

Free Guide: https://sparkbillingservices.com/5k-in-15-minutes

Have a billing story or question to share? Send them in to office@betterbillingtoday.com