Financial processes throughout the patient journey significantly affect the overall patient experience. Hospitals and health systems that have embraced digital payment technologies are finding that patients pay faster, reducing accounts receivable balances and eliminating manual processes.
Becker's Healthcare recently spoke with RevSpring's president of payments, Steve Callis, about the current state of healthcare organizations adopting digital payment systems. He shared best practices for deploying solutions that enhance patient satisfaction and improve the bottom line.
Question: As hospitals and health systems hone patient satisfaction and engagement strategies, payments have emerged as an area ripe for improvements. Beyond meeting patient demand, how else can digital payment options benefit healthcare organizations? Can you share some examples?
Steve Callis: I believe it all starts with a consistent and cohesive approach to patient engagement and payments. Understanding who a patient is, how they want to be communicated with and their propensity to pay are critically important to improving revenue collections and yield, greater self-service adoption, operational efficiencies and more.
Digital payment options benefit healthcare organizations in several ways. One is improved cash flow and yield within revenue cycle management. Allowing patients to pay using the channel they are most comfortable with increases payment speed and reduces the average number of days in accounts receivable.
In our own digital engagement and payment environments, we see a 20% to 30% reduction in engagement costs driven by postage savings and a 20% average increase in self-service payments. In general, payments in a digital environment are 6 1/2 days faster.
Digital payments also reduce the administrative costs and errors associated with manual processing of payments. RevSpring's merchant offering, which is integrated in our patient engagement and payment technology platform, includes settlement reconciliation reporting. This results in over 50% time savings for treasury management and accounting teams.
Another benefit is a better, more streamlined patient experience. Allowing patients to store cards on file, set up payment plans and pay with credit cards, ACH or alternative payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay increases patient satisfaction. RevSpring's 2023 Voice of the Patient Survey found that patients between ages 27 and 34 paid primarily via an online payment portal, and 20% of the youngest patients paid via an automated interactive voice response phone system.
Q: What are the biggest barriers healthcare organizations face in adopting digital payment options? How can they navigate these challenges?
SC: Integration with existing systems can be complex and costly. Hospitals and health systems must ensure their EHR ties into their patient engagement provider, payment applications, payment devices and hardware, and merchant processors. An orchestrated ecosystem is essential for supporting different payment types, as well as posting and reconciling patient payments daily.
In my opinion, it's important for healthcare organizations to work closely with partners. A partner with an integrated merchant services offering can provide a 360-degree view from the patient transaction to settlement of payment in the hospital or health system's bank account. It's advisable for organizations to look at their full vendor ecosystem and consolidate where possible. The more suppliers you have, the more complex it becomes and the greater the risk that the patient experience will break down.
Q: What are the key elements in an effective digital payment strategy? What tools, resources or best practices can help organizations align with this approach?
SC: The biggest takeaway is to make it easy for the patient. Leverage intelligence about patients to drive cohesive, streamlined and personalized interactions at every point of the care journey that are consistent with how patients want to be communicated with and how they want to pay.
Price transparency is also critical. Patients truly want to understand the cost of services before receiving care and they want to compare prices. In addition, patients expect self-service options that are user friendly. Online portals must be optimized for mobile devices.
Our 2023 Voice of the Patient Survey found that 70% of patients will pay faster when presented with payment options that best fit their preferences; 75% will pay their balance on time if a discount is offered; and 64% are more likely to pay after receiving an advanced estimate.
Q: What trends do you see shaping the future of healthcare payments over the next few years?
SC: Healthcare is moving toward a retail-like experience. Younger generations are demanding more digital, low-touch, convenient experiences. They also want to use alternative payment methods and touchless, frictionless solutions. Operationally I'm seeing hospitals and health systems consolidate vendors and move to single-source providers or fewer suppliers that can offer pre- and post-service solutions. Some are even looking to consolidate their patient billing and non-patient revenue from settings like cafeterias and gift shops. This helps organizations offer consistency in the engagement and payments experience, while providing a streamlined solution through one provider, and an integrated view into their revenue and reconciliation of patient and non-patient settings.
Q: Is there anything else you'd like our readers to know?
SC: Artificial intelligence is coming to healthcare, and it's coming quickly. At RevSpring, we are embracing AI and putting forward initiatives related to this new technology. I think hospitals, health systems and technology providers must leverage AI and improve the patient experience through engagement and payment options that align with patient preferences.