If your physician’s office is plagued with a large number of accounts that have an outstanding patient responsibility, then you likely know the negative impact late payments can have on your cash flow. Managing your revenue cycle efficiently and reducing your days in accounts receivable (DAR) is essential to having the funds you need for office improvement, employee training, and other expenses that ultimately contribute to patient satisfaction. Requiring payment at the time of service is a sure way to lower your DAR, however, this is not a feasible option for many providers and patients.

Like any industry in America, the healthcare industry faces many challenges. Recruiting and retaining qualified physicians, driving revenue growth, and encouraging employee engagement are among the most compelling overall. But, for many healthcare finance administrators, revenue cycle challenges are equally daunting. One reason for this is the constant struggle to collect payments from patients, which makes it difficult to maintain a low ‘Days in Accounts Receivables’ (DAR) rate. If this struggle sounds familiar to you, then Epic River is here to help.

Whether it is for a routine preventive health exam or treatment for a medical condition, everyone needs to go to the doctor at some point. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford to pay the medical bills associated with their treatment, leaving many Americans drowning in medical debt. In fact, a recent study concluded that nearly 43 million people in our country have unpaid medical debts. There are many reasons why a patient’s medical bills may go unpaid and in today’s post, we’ll review a few of the more common causes of the troubling impact this has on both personal bank accounts and the larger economy.

See the original press release here: https://www.prweb.com/releases/2018/07/prweb15624140.htm

As a medical provider, your number one concern is always that of patient health and safety. So what happens when outdated billing practices make it challenging for a patient to pay off their medical debt or worse, inadvertently prevents them from seeking the care that they need? In June 2017, the CDC reported that nearly 40 percent of Americans between 18 and 64 years old have a high-deductible health insurance plan, and that 15.5 percent of them reported difficulty paying their medical bills. It is an unfortunate fact that many individuals who seek care often can’t afford their out-of-pocket portion of the resulting bills because of these high deductibles.

Lately everyone is talking about strategies for improving upfront collections, providing estimates to patients sooner, clarifying patient expectations, and so forth. All of this is an effort to improve collection of patient responsibility. With the rise of high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), providers have been forced to adjust their collections processes in order to maintain financial health. According to a revenue cycle survey conducted by The Advisory Board Company, hospitals have doubled their median point-of-service collections over the last four years.

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A new study by TransUnion revealed patient payment responsibility increased 11% in 2017. Of all patient out-of-pocket costs per visit 39% were over $500. When you combine this new information together with the findings from the Federal Reserve Economic Report - 35% of adults would be unable to make all of their other bill payments in full if faced with a $400 emergency.

Florida joined what has become a swift national trend towards transparency in both healthcare price and quality. According to the National Conference of State Legislators, “In the past decade, health care price transparency or disclosure has emerged as a hot topic in state legislatures, as a strategy for containing health costs. States, the federal government and the private sector have enacted legal requirements and initiated programs that aim to shed light on the costs of health care services.”