January 11, 2018
Delivering Superior Payment Experiences
It’s a familiar theme: hospitals are required to do more with less; and, unfortunately, HIS systems often do not provide measurable insights for improving the patient experience.
To solve these challenges, RevSpring offers solutions to enhance the patient experience. By delivering superior communication and payment experiences, our focus is on three main areas: patient-centered design, intelligent communication, and channel flexibility.
Design Your Statement With the Patient in Mind
There is a new standard for customer engagement, which largely has been led by big brands such as Amazon, Southwest Airlines, and Starbucks. Consumers are familiar with this level of interaction, and it is what you’ll be compared against when it comes to your patient engagement and payment strategy.
With that in mind, review your current patient statements and ask the following:
- Is it clear?
- Easy to read?
- Does it make it easy to find the most relevant information?
- Do you have the technology that creates communications that are consistent and patient centered regardless of whether or not the patient is using IVR, web, email, and print to interact with you?
- Is the communication intelligent? Do you use segmentation to customize patient communications?
If you answered ‘no’ to any of the questions above, there is room for improvement. Simple changes to your statement design can create a clear call to action, help you stay compliant by explaining payment options that are available to the patient, and make your patient’s experience interacting with your facility a little easier.
Intelligent Communication
At RevSpring, we believe that patients want to meet their financial obligations. To that end, we’ve developed payment tools that give our clients a faster response, automated workflows that allow your staff to focus on what matters most, and payment options that allow your patients to self-serve when they are ready to pay.
Certain demographics still prefer traditional mail but that doesn’t mean it should be the default option. Lockbox payments can take seven to 10 days between the time a check gets mailed and when you can post that payment. Automated IVR and 24/7 online payment portals offer the convenience of next-day payment posting, dramatically improving time to cash.
Traditional methods are also more expensive. Assuming that the average customer service rep (CSR) makes $30 an hour, and the average time to take a payment is five minutes, that translates to a price tag of $2.50 to collect a payment over the phone with a rep. Compare that to an automated payment, which can range between $0.30 to $0.84.
Instead of relying on traditional processes, try rethinking it from the patient’s perspective and setting the process with that orientation. Guide them to payment options through good design and make sure your first communication syncs with the patient’s financial situation.
Channel Flexibility
Finally, provide payment options that allow patients to access their information 24/7 and make a payment whenever and however they prefer.
One RevSpring client, in two months after their go-live date, saw a dramatic spike of IVR payments (from zero to 14% of total payments), which dramatically reduced cost to cash and time to collect for their organization. Their percentage of CSR-accepted payments was reduced from 40% to 26% in that brief time period.
Providing an easy-to-use and credible portal interface is just as important. A responsive design website that allows the patient to navigate and submit a payment on any device makes it easy and convenient for them to pay their bill. Allowing consumers to pay without setting up an account is also a necessary payment option. Quick-pay solutions, without the hurdles of authentication, are used by 80% of users who want to pay online.
Creating a superior payment process enables your patients to have a more comfortable and convenient payment experience, which in turn, will get you paid faster and with less staff resources – a win-win situation for both you and your patients. RevSpring can help. Contact us at learnmore@revspringinc.com.
