With All the Noise from Healthcare Payment Technology Vendors, How do you Stand Out? Easy...A Better Result!
Everyone is using the same buzzwords, “omni-channel payments”, “seamless integration”, “real-time analytics”, “personalization”, “patient engagement”, etc. Almost every healthcare RCM technology or service vendor will use a variation or combination of these catch phrases. We’ve done it. It’s easy to get caught up in saying what the other guy says. You may even fool yourself into believing that these words are necessary because that’s what your potential partner/buyer will understand. Maybe we’re over-analyzing our own messaging.
Just last week, we had three different prospective partners in two days share their frustration and ask the same question. “Every vendor we talk to says the same thing. It’s really tough to know how you’re all different. What does PatientPay do differently?” It’s a great question that anyone in sales or business development should never forget to address even when you’re not asked. So it got us thinking about what makes us truly unique across the vast landscape of patient engagement and payment solutions. The answer was actually quite simple...our results.
We could expound on the features and functions around engaging patients through omni-channel (oops) communications such as email, print and text. Text is still quite new to the healthcare RCM space. We could tell you this is where we started and we understand that the simple ability to send a text doesn’t get the patient to understand their bill and execute a payment. Or we could talk about the simplicity of the patient experience where you don’t have to download an app or create an account. Or how flexible, interest-free, self-service payment plans are a great tool to help amortize the rising costs of healthcare for patients, even outside of trying times like we’re experiencing today. Payment plans are extremely beneficial and we do them well. But so do others. So from a laundry list of value statements attached to an infinite parade of feature functions, the simple question you should ask yourself is, “So what”? Did the shiny new object and the triple-lindy of personalized segmentation engines give your patient enough clarity and comfort to execute paying their bill? If it didn’t, then you’re failing.
Some level of failure is acceptable. In fact, if you collect above 30% of what you bill patients, you’re absolutely crushing the industry average. So what does it take to get there? You need to know this space very well and have an ability to get abnormally strong payment results even during abnormally challenging times.
For example, take a specialty provider such as anesthesiology or radiology. Patient balances are typically more challenging to collect since the patient often doesn’t realize a contracted anesthesiologist or radiologist will be sending them a separate bill. If you can increase their collection rate by 20% to 25%, do it consistently, AND do it through a pandemic (when elective procedures have been halted), you’ve brought real value to your RCM partner and their providers. And you’ve brought an increased sense of patient satisfaction by giving those patients (or guarantors) enough clarity and options to hit that “pay” button.
In one scenario, we helped an established anesthesiology RCM partner over the past 12 months increase their collection rate from 8% to 29.7%. Most impressive is the impact over the past couple of months, where we’ve achieved a 37% increase in their collection rate from February thru April.
Even new partners can experience an immediate impact. This is critical since a successful result may not solely be in dollars (or percentage) collected, but also in accelerating those dollars for more cash on hand. One hospital-based radiology RCM partner who went “live” in late March saw a 10% collection rate in their first month, and are now looking at a collection rate of 32% (a 220% increase!) through May 20th. Furthermore, the patients represented are in the epicenter of the pandemic in the New York metroplex!
Whether it’s more dollars, faster dollars, or a reduced cost to get to both, the one consistent goal is a desire to get results. Unfortunately for providers and their RCM partners, what you don’t see are enough healthcare RCM technologies touting actual results, the one thing that matters most.
To learn how you can achieve these results, request a demo today!