While most adults are comfortable budgeting around mortgage and auto payments, many are now struggling with unforeseen liabilities. According to the Survey of Income and Program Participation, 1 in 10 American adults owe medical debt, with millions owing more than $10,000.

The pandemic intensified the need for online loan documentation and remote signing in the banking industry. A lot of financial institutions were caught flat-footed, unable to generate loans due to the lockdown. This problem accelerated the need for easy-to-use, secure solutions.

Successfully collecting on internal payment plans is one of the biggest problems facing hospitals and healthcare facilities, today. Fortunately, there is a solution that benefits medical providers, community banks and -- most important – patients.

It seems the forced moratorium on medical bill litigation that accompanied the coronavirus shut down over the spring has ended. Recently, the number of hospitals and patients suing one another has increased. Sick and injured people shouldn’t have to choose between buying groceries or paying their bills. On the other hand, healthcare providers not compensated for services may be forced into bankruptcy. At last count, 42 hospitals closed or filed for bankruptcy this year, with more expected in the coming months.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, medical debt was throwing the country’s healthcare system into crisis. Now, as challenges with the virus continue, many people are losing their jobs, making it impossible to pay their bills. Add that to a 50-70% drop in patient volume due to coronavirus fears, and 13% of providers worry they’ll be out of business in a month. Struggling to keep the lights on, practitioners are trying a variety of strategies to obtain patient responsibilities – optimizing IT systems, collecting payments at the time of service, using external business offices (EBO) – but it’s not enough. These challenging times require a truly innovative solution.

Your priority as a provider is caring about your patients’ health… and that includes their financial well-being. But what can you prescribe for patients who don’t qualify for your existing financing options? Instead of turning them away or sacrificing 5-20% of your patient’s balance to a medical credit card company, consider a triple dose of success with Epic River’s patient lending solution.

Electronic Medical Record (EMR) integration is a top priority in Epic River’s development plan because it creates a better experience for patients, caregivers, and administrators. These deep integrations allow organizations to pull and push information to and from the EMR, avoiding inefficient duplicate data entry and maintaining data integrity. We now fully integrate with Epic and AthenaHealth, with aggressive plans for more integrations in the future.

We are truly in unprecedented times. The ripple effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has only started to make its way through our industry. With the expected increase in hospitalizations, many affected patients will be responsible for most, if not all, of their deductible in 2020. As you know, business offices feel the effects of spikes in volume after caregivers do.

Many medical providers have made the shift to outsourcing their patient payment plans. The reason? In-house management can be exorbitantly expensive, inefficient and ultimately a losing proposition for providers.

As a healthcare provider, your margins depend on the patients who come through your doors. Indeed, a 2019 survey of US hospitals and health system leaders found that 30% of those surveyed consider flat or declining inpatient volumes as putting the greatest pressure on revenues.