Hospitals should consider a patient's traits when establishing a payment plan, said David Shelton, CEO of PatientMatters.
"A hospital using the traditional ‘one size fits all' approach to maximize collections typically generates a higher patient default rate that forces more patients into a bad debt status and in turn increases hospital collection costs," he told Becker’s.
"Some of the results we’ve seen through generating a patient assessment evaluation, a custom monthly payment plan, and guidelines for hospital staff to relay this information to patients are: improved point-of-service collections by more than 200 percent in the first 60 days; reduced appointment rescheduling and no-shows by 25 percent or more; and reduced early out and bad debt vendor expenses by as much as 25 percent," said Mr. Shelton.
Establishing payment plans that include current credit information, payment history for financial obligations, residual income and other unique patient statistics should all be considered in the billing process, he said.
"With the help of technology, combined with a best practices training strategy, these customized plans are designed to maximize incoming patient payments and provide a patient-friendly hospital environment," he said.
For more information from Mr. Shelton about customized patient payments, click here.
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