Healthcare and medical billing offices lag behind many other industries in adopting payment software for patient collections.
Concerns over HIPAA compliance, patient responsibilities, and software integration often delay patient billing and revenue collection system adoption—but they shouldn’t.
The key to improving patient collections in healthcare is implementing a HIPAA-compliant, automated patient collection software that integrates into your revenue cycle management process.
Patient Collections Pain Points
It can be overwhelming to find new software for your company. New patient collections software requires:
- Employee training
- Policy and procedure documentation updates
- Payment workflow testing
- New billing processes, channels, and tools
Simplify with one versatile software that improves patient collection in several ways.
Identify the pain points where patients are struggling to complete payments and how you can improve their experience.
Improving Self-Serve Patient Collections
The easiest accounts in patient collections are those that take the initiative to pay their bills through self-serve channels.
Having a secure, easy-to-access patient portal for payments increases receivables with no extra work for staff.
However, patients are likely to abandon payments if the process is too difficult. Take measures to increase and retain patient-initiated payments.
Payment Portal
A patient billing and revenue collection system should include a payment portal that allows patients to make secure patient payments online. The online payment option you offer should be simple, clear, and easy to use.
Follow the basics of good website design so consumers can find their way to the payment page from anywhere on your website.
Electronic Payment Reminders
With text message and email communications, payment reminders can capture more revenue than a paper bill and reduce the need for collection agencies.
Sending a text or email reminder with a link to payment is the perfect way to remind patients they have an outstanding balance on medical services.
Email and SMS payment reminders nudge customers to pay without requiring agents to spend time on manual follow-ups.
Look for HIPAA-compliant software that offers security measures like dual authentication to keep private information safe.
Live Agent Patient Collections
Not all medical bills can be resolved without help from an agent. Some patients may need assistance understanding their financial responsibility or discussing payment options.
However, even patients who say they have the ability to pay may not follow through. A better patient experience ensures your healthcare collections staff succeeds.
Adding software technology into the patient collection process ensures agents can collect payments faster.
Send text and email payment links while still on the phone with a patient and your medical debt collection staff can walk patients through the process.
This method can also double as a way to limit your PCI compliance responsibility—especially for remote workers.
Recurring Payments for Patient Collections
Oftentimes in patient collections, people with large bills or limited insurance coverage require recurring payment plans to pay what they owe.
If you don’t offer recurring payment plans, patients with limited insurance coverage are less likely to afford to pay their bill.
Payment collection software can increase patient payments and simplify compliance.
Send a text or email so patients can review their payment schedule and capture a schedule authorization together. Follow Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) compliance and make recurring payments easy for patients
Recurring Billing Software
Key Features
How PDCflow Helps
Get fast approvals for your recurring schedules with PDCflow.
Send payment consent requests via email or SMS for recurring payment schedules, and receive an esignature in minutes.
PDCflow’s recurring payment schedules automatically send a payment reminder.
Specify how many days before a scheduled payment a reminder should be sent.
Reminders include payment details and contact information.
PDCflow offers many options to customize a payment plan that works for your customers.
Choose:
- how frequently payments are processed.
- whether the plan is created using a set payment amount or length of the terms.
- whether to add fees to the payments.
Control the minimum amount any customer is allowed to pay per installment.
Use this global setting to ensure your payment schedules still bring in revenue in the short term.
Control the length of time customers can take to pay the full balance.
Cap how long any recurring schedule can run by limiting the number of payments or length of time customers can choose.
PDCflow makes it easier for your company to adhere to Payment Compliance Industry standards.
Our software captures and stores payment data for businesses, so you don’t have to.
PDCflow for Patient Collections
No matter what payment circumstances your patients are in, PDCflow simplifies the process and increases your bottom line.
Instead of finding different tools for digital documents, esignatures, and payments, PDCflow software combines all of these processes together.
HIPAA Compliance
PDCflow’s software is fully HIPAA compliant, providing secure payment requests, electronic signatures, and secure document transfer between parties while safeguarding patient information.
Send files to other offices through email or SMS, or request insurance cards, ID photos, or medical files securely sent to you.
Faster, Easier Workflows
PDCflow saves time and simplifies in-office operations. Mix and match any of the actions you need to perform, and execute them all within a single Flow.
- Send up to five documents at once
- Request electronic signatures
- Request payments
- Request photo uploads
- Request file uploads
- Send to multiple recipients if needed
In-Depth Reporting
Automated Payment Reminders
Payment reminders are a good way to nudge patients without taking up staff time on manual follow-ups.
When you send an email or SMS message, you can set up an automated reminder, so patients get another message before their payment request expires.
Payment Portals
Payment portals are one of the best ways to increase your patient collections with little to no extra work for your healthcare facility.
PDCflow payment portals let you take credit card or ACH payments, and even allow patients to create their own recurring schedules, without the help of a staff member.
PDCflow can transform the way your organization collects on medical debts. To learn more about the benefits PDCflow can bring to your business, request a demo today.
Book a Demo:
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR -
Hannah Huerta, Marketing Specialist
Hannah Huerta is a Marketing Specialist at PDCflow. She creates content for the accounts receivable and payment industry.
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