As hospitals and health systems confront staffing challenges and respond to patients' desire for more streamlined, often tech-based healthcare experiences, many organizations are increasing self-service and automated processes for patients, such as digital intake and registration tools.
Becker's Healthcare recently spoke with two intake and registration experts from RevSpring — Irene Barron, product director, patient access; and Howard Bright, chief technology officer, patient engagement — about the potential for these tools and processes to increase data accuracy from the first step of the patient journey, while yielding powerful clinical, administrative and financial outcomes for organizations.
Digital tools improve patient satisfaction while alleviating staff
Consumers routinely use digital tools on their smartphones to schedule hair appointments, make restaurant reservations and much more. They increasingly expect the same experience in healthcare.
"It's gotten to the point where patients are dissatisfied if they can't schedule a doctor's appointment online, check in on their phone or fill out electronic intake forms," Mr. Bright said. "Digital tools on the front-end result in happier patients — and happier patients are more likely to return."
Ms. Barron agreed. "Patients expect healthcare to be like all other modern businesses," she said. "Patients and families don't want to sit in a waiting room or be on a telephone hold for long periods of time. With staff shortages in healthcare, wait times in lobbies or on the phone can be very long."
Patients have also become more comfortable paying for services with their phones, through mobile payment platforms like Apple Pay and others.
"Handling copays and other payments electronically is another way that patients can self-serve during the intake process," Mr. Bright said. "That relieves the administrative burden for the patient access team. As a result, those staff members can turn their attention to more complex financial clearance tasks, such as prior authorizations, pre-certifications and medical necessity."
Accurate patient information is the prescription for financial well-being
It's imperative that healthcare organizations capture accurate information early in the patient life cycle. When healthcare organizations gather the right data during registration, they can reduce claims denials and rebilling. This decreases accounts receivable days and improves cash flow due to higher collection levels.
"Healthcare clinics and outpatient facilities can no longer afford to rebill claims or delay patient collections due to inaccurate information," Ms. Barron said. "The financial aspect of healthcare is going to become more complex for all providers, especially in light of government regulations related to good faith estimates, price transparency and reduced payments to outpatient facilities."
Digital intake and registration tools also deliver clinical benefits
The digitization of patient information reduces paperwork burden for clinical teams. Data is captured once and shared throughout the organization, so clinical teams don't have to ask patients questions that they've already answered.
"As patients complete electronic intake forms with their medical history, we can digitize that and distribute the information more broadly to clinical team members," Ms. Barron said. "We're seeing intake move beyond the administrative and financial pieces of patient access and it's now improving the clinical side of the patient experience."