Is Improving Your Revenue Cycle the Secret to Patient Retention?

In a world where online bill payment has become the norm, the healthcare industry has woefully lagged behind when it comes to providing convenient and transparent billing and payment methods.

Just imagine if purchasing a car was like paying a medical bill. Consumers would go to a dealership and choose a car, not knowing how much it actually costs, receiving a bill in the mail weeks later providing a seemingly arbitrary dollar amount that could be beyond what the purchaser could conceivably pay.

This method of billing and payment forces the consumer to play a frustrating and costly guessing game. Venture a guess as to whether that consumer would publicly complain about the process, or better yet, quietly take their business elsewhere, perhaps to a car dealer who has figured out how to achieve price transparency.  The truth of the matter is that nearly every other purchase people make in life is more transparent and easy to plan for and manage than medical bills.

Now that healthcare consumers have access to more choices when selecting healthcare providers, those who fail to offer more patient-friendly, transparent billing methods will eventually begin to see patients leave and not come back. Why? Keeping up with expectations of price transparency, clarity, and payment convenience that modern healthcare consumers demand is essential to keeping patients happy and loyal to their current medical providers.

The surge in High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) raises the revenue cycle bar for all medical providers, especially those that rely heavily on commercial insurance as part of their revenue mix. Failing to implement tools that remove the traditional confusion and complexity of how much patients owe, providing clarity on why they are financially responsible for, and securing payment assurance in a convenient, transparent, and secure way has quickly gone from “nice to have” to “it’s going to put us out of business.”

Our new whitepaper “The Positive Link Between Patient Empowerment and Improving Patient Retention” which can be downloaded via our newly rebranded website, provides a detailed look at how empowering patients with a revenue cycle management solution such as Health iPASS  works to build trust and loyalty between patients and providers. This whitepaper is a must-read for medical providers who are looking for ways to boost patient retention.

For instance, did you know that…

• Patient satisfaction drives word-of-mouth marketing, and 71 percent of patients admit to booking appointments based on referrals from friends or social networks.
• More payers are moving to value-based healthcare models, paying providers on patient outcomes rather than simply managing fee-for-service contracts. Patient satisfaction scores play a role in how a provider fares with many of these models.
• 53 percent of adults consider receiving a large, surprise medical bill as negative an experience as receiving a diagnosis for a serious illness.

Talk about food for thought. If you are searching for ways to improve patient collections, provide greater healthcare transparency, and boost patient retention, we strongly urge you to download our new whitepaper as you consider your options. The time has come to update the way you do business if you wish to ensure future success. You definitely don’t want your patients walking away from your practice as if they purchased a lemon.