Disruptive Innovation in the Patient Revenue Cycle

In a changing healthcare landscape, relying on the same old methods and systems to manage patient revenue is simply no longer effective. The pressing need for positive change calls for disruptive innovation, which is defined by Forbes contributor John Converse Townsend in his 2013 article as, “how industries transform to create more affordable and accessible products and services.” Many hospitals and small-scale health systems are seeking this kind of revitalizing disruption by switching to a new Patient Accounting System (PAS) to improve communication throughout the organization, drive efficiency, increase patient loyalty and empowerment, and boost cost savings while improving cash flow. Unfortunately, in most cases, a PAS conversion can be a massive headache. It takes the right people, tools, and technology to efficiently convert your PAS, but knowing the “symptoms” that lead to a need for disruptive patient revenue cycle innovation is the first step to making the switch to a successful solution.

An Economic Burden

A 2014 Commonwealth Fund report ranked the U.S. dead last in the cost and efficiency of healthcare when compared to other developed nations. One component of this efficiency deficit is the administration of accounting and billing within hospitals and medical practices. For hospitals and medical centers, inefficient handling of the patient revenue cycle becomes an intense juggling act of all its truncated operational costs. For smaller or more specialized medical providers, the practice is sometimes barely scraping by due to an inability to collect outstanding patient revenue.  Smaller-scale medical providers are also hampered by ineffective collection staff or substandard tools and technology.

Addressing the Modern Healthcare Consumer

Massive corporate initiatives often seek to throw more money at researching how to create a more effective business model for the patient revenue cycle. This spending adds to the overall debt of healthcare shareholders and contributes to the phenomenon of active inertia within the cycle— a lot of activity, but very little meaningful forward movement. Aids, innovations, delegations, and committees are all absorbing costs and draining resources in an attempt to address an increasingly empowered and educated healthcare consumer. This new type of consumer is paying for more out-of-pocket healthcare expenses, and therefore requires an innovative approach to patient account management that provides better price transparency and an improved user experience.

A Call to Action for Healthcare Innovators

The trend toward disruptive innovation in healthcare calls for the creation of tools and technologies that can be mobilized and accessed independently of the organization. Decreasing the overhead of many accounting systems and accountants will balance the ratio of person/tool/tech. Ideally, these tools will combine the convenience of liquid technology or management with the real-time local effectuality of the private practice.

Why Practices Are Reluctant to Switch

While many practices are aware that patient revenue cycle management is slow and ineffective, they are often reluctant to act on it. Let’s face it—change is hard for most people, and letting go of an old, familiar patient revenue management system can be intimidating and costly.

Practices are also accustomed to dealing with third party vendor software implementations that drain resources, are complicated to learn and understand, and are often beset by frustrating delays that push go live dates well beyond their initial target. HealthiPass has created a solution that enables a fast and seamless switch to an innovative, multi-channel software solution in days and hours rather than weeks and months

HealthiPass Boosts Patient Revenue Cycle Efficiency Without Switch Hassles  

The HealthiPass solution can be onboarded without the sweat of the prep process because it seamlessly integrates into the existing PAS.

HealthiPass represents a much-needed innovation of typical PAS norms.  Our model works against the sluggishness of large corporation red tape, offering access to clear and accurate co-pay/deductible/co-insurance amounts and an opportunity to secure payment authorization for any balances due post insurance claim adjudication. It also works against the technological limitations of the fragmented private practice by providing enough universal features to integrate well with any existing PAS systems.

In this way, HealthiPass presents a game-changing software solution that provides real innovation for an outdated system. In a process that suffers from sluggishness, sometimes a disruption is just what is needed to move forward to a better way.