Patient Acquisition Hinges on Positive Medical Billing Experience

A recent survey of 1,000 healthcare consumers showed that patients are increasingly valuing the medical billing experience and providers who fail to deliver a positive financial journey may be jeopardizing new patient acquisition.

The survey conducted by health IT company Salucro found that about three out of four consumers (76 percent) consider the medical billing and payment process to be somewhat or very important when evaluating a provider.

The finding suggests that new patient acquisition is not just about the quality of clinical care and providers should be paying more attention to their medical billing experience, as well as peer reviews and recommendations that mention their financial processes online.

“We tend to think first and foremost about a patient’s quality of care when we evaluate a provider but the truth is, their financial journey can have just as much of an impact on satisfaction,” Clayton Bain, founder and CEO of Salucro, stated in the press release announcing survey results. “Hospitals and medical centers that do not prioritize the billing and payment process are putting themselves in a position to lose patients and erode their brand loyalty, even if their clinical care is top notch.”

Patients and consumers are willing to seek care from another provider because of lackluster medical billing experiences. Respondents said they would seek an alternate provider if they experienced the following scenarios:

• Incorrect or confusing bills (42 percent)
• Difficult or unorganized billing and payment processes (34 percent)
• Preferred payment option is not accepted (28 percent)
• No flexibility with payment options and financing plans (25 percent)
• Significant delays in receiving a medical bill after an encounter (22 percent)

Providers are already putting patient acquisition and patient loyalty at risk, according to survey results. Nearly one-half (47 percent) of consumers surveyed reported a medical billing or payment issue at their most recent healthcare encounter.

Patients and consumers are demanding more from provider billing and payment processes. The survey showed that respondents wanted more payment options at the provider’s office. Credit and debit cards, as well as health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts, were their most preferred medical bill payment options. However, 35 percent of respondents wanted to pay by cash and 28 percent demanded providers to accept check or automated clearing house (ACH).

About 26 percent of respondents also expressed interest in paying by PayPal and 22 percent through flexible, recurring payment plans.

Provider organizations could benefit from meeting patient and consumer demands. Patient financial responsibility increased by another 12 percent from 2017 and 2018, and it is likely to increase further as employers continue to offer high-deductible health plans in an effort to curb rising healthcare costs, researchers from TransUnion Healthcare recently reported.

As patients owe more out-of-pocket, providers are relying more on their patients for revenue capture. In fact, a 2018 analysis found that hospital revenue attributable to patient financial responsibility after insurance increased by 88 percent from 2012 through 2017.

In addition to flexible payment options, healthcare consumers are also demanding a more digital, transparent medical billing experience. A recent survey conducted by Survata on behalf of Cedar found that 49 percent of consumers were frustrated with the lack of digital administrative processes (e.g., online bill pay, access to insurance information) at their provider’s office.

Approximately 60 percent of respondents to the survey also tried to get out-of-pocket costs from providers ahead of care, but 51 percent reported that they did not get it easily or accurately.

Similarly, 41 percent of consumers in the Survata survey said they would consider switching providers for a medical billing experience that better met their demands.

The medical billing experience should be part of a provider’s brand, and failing to address patient and new consumer expectations could harm the brand, Salucro’s Brain explained.

“Any organization’s financial success is dependent on the volume of customers who buy into their brand, and our data shows that hospitals and medical centers are in danger of losing patients, and ultimately profit, by neglecting to optimize their payment and billing process,” he concluded.