Are Your Health IT Investments Paying Off?

Electronic, integrated and cloud-based IT solutions have been making their way into healthcare settings for several years now ’ and the technology trend is just starting to take off. New software systems and hardware are meant to improve efficiency, reduce operating costs, and increase patient satisfaction. They are also meant to increase revenue by making physicians and support staff more productive. Many medical facilities implementing these solutions, however, fail to consider how their IT investments might pay off by helping staff collect from patients more efficiently, be it through successful front-end payment or back-end recovery efforts.Does your healthcare organization use EMR/PM software or offer online bill pay? Read on to find out how these IT solutions present an opportunity to increase revenue, manage office resources in more efficient ways, and collect payment from patients.

EMR/PM Software

If the figures from industry polls are accurate, more than half of hospitals and healthcare practices are currently using electronic medical record software ’ and the numbers are increasing month to month. Most EMR systems have a built-in billing module or can integrate with practice management solutions, thus ensuring a streamlined billing process where charge capture is automated, accurate and timely.

While healthcare businesses have long used electronic means for billing, it is the interface with patient health records that is making billing and collections quicker, easier and more exact. After all, by accessing one single system, staff can:

• Manage patient accounts and balances.
• Verify insurance information and demographics.
• Submit insurance claims directly to the payer for payment.

If a claim comes back denied, billers can look into the system to find the problem and correct it. Plus, once a patient pays their bill, it is reflected in the system, allowing staff to move on to the next account.

Online Bill Pay

According to an AMA article which cites a 2011 survey, more than 50 percent of U.S. adults say they would consider going to a different doctor, provided that the doctor offered some kind of online bill pay service. This is not surprising, considering that the majority of Americans pay some or all of their bills online. Healthcare practices that fail to offer this as a service to their patients stand to lose out on potential revenue ’ and that’s just the start. Traditional collection methods tend to cost a company more, both in terms of time spent contacting and following up with patients and in resources used sending statements and collection letters.

To offer the option for patients to pay their medical bills online, healthcare organizations can set up an EMR-integrated healthcare portal. This is one of the most efficient ways to receive payments from patients, and it employs software that is most likely already being used for other healthcare reasons. Online portals allow patients to sign in through a secure connection, review their statements, and make a full or partial payment at a time and a place that is convenient to them. This can lead to increased medical collection rates, meanwhile creating less work for billing staff. Online bill pay options such as this one allow organizations to take full advantage of existing health IT solutions, ensuring a high return on their investment.