Gettin’ Texty

85% of electronic payments are made via a mobile device

A couple months ago we shared a BLOG about standing out amongst the sea of revenue cycle vendors. Looking across that vast expanse these days, you will hear something you didn’t just a short time ago. “Hey providers, we can now send a text-based patient bill!” Let PatientPay, an organization that was focused 100% on electronic patient engagement from our inception, share a little secret with you: The ability to simply send a text is not enough.

Too often revenue cycle solution providers will subscribe to the react method of product enhancement. We found out the hard way that we needed to offer a well planned, consumer science-based paper statement after avoiding it for a long time. There’s the key. Effectively implementing a tool such as text-based billing needs to be well planned. Why, you ask? Isn’t texting simple? Everyone on earth does it every day. How hard can it be to send a simple text alerting a patient or guarantor to an open balance? Let me share a story.

We have been working with a partner for several months who did a very smart thing by inserting our solution in one line of business, while implementing a competitor in another in order to have a “bake-off” to determine the best long-term strategy. We walked in with our customary push for electronic engagement. Our competitor stuck to their program claiming, people won’t pay from text. But we can do that too.

We went live, making an immediate impact capturing patient payments at an excellent rate based on our omni-channel engagement strategy. That, of course, includes text-based billing and is a component of our overall (well planned) dunning strategy. After taking several months to get live, our competitor wasn’t driving the same rate of payments. What’s significantly worse is the poorly planned, reactive texting strategy created legal challenges for our partner. Let me share secret number two: If you’re going to offer text-based billing, make sure you understand TCPA regulations.

For our side of the equation, we’ll let our partner’s words speak for themselves, “PatientPay taught us that texting works. But just texting obviously isn’t enough.” Amen. It must be part of a broader strategy and must be respected.

Still don’t think text-to-pay will work? One of the keys is to focus on the simple. How do you get patients to click on that link? For 2020, PatientPay is getting a 21% overall click-through rate vs a 2-3% industry average. If you don’t know, the simple explanation is that click-through rates measure how many recipients click the link per message sent. So great, they click. Then what? Now you need to marry simplicity with clarity in order to get someone to use the payment tool.

How is PatientPay doing? We thought you’d never ask. Analyzing data beginning May 1, 2020, we’re getting:

• Initial text: 87% click rate with a 28% pay-from-text rate
• Reminder text: 37% click rate with a 41% pay-from-text rate
• 77% mobile traffic vs desktop
• 85% of electronic payments via mobile device

The bottom line is the right strategy and execution of a text-to-pay strategy will increase your top line and improve your bottom line by increasing self-service. Isn’t that what most well-planned solutions (technology or service-based) should do?