This article was originally written by Privacy Attorney, Leslie Bender and published in October, 2020. It has recently been updated and republished. As the number of folks working from home has skyrocketed during the pandemic, the effects of being more digitally connected have been both good and bad. Reports of suspected attacks by cybercriminals to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s …
4 Pillars of Empathetic Communication in Healthcare Finance
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, “empathy” and “compassion” have been buzzwords in almost every industry. People are craving the human connection and understanding that comes with empathy, which is why now more than ever, understanding compassionate, empathetic communication is extremely important. For organizations that collect healthcare payments, having empathetic communication skills should be part of your company policies. …
EBOs and the Patient Experience in Healthcare Billing
The patient experience in healthcare billing is an essential (often overlooked) part of the healthcare revenue cycle. Every medical organization understands that patients need to feel involved in their care during medical services but don’t always extend that importance when it’s time for patients to pay. As an extended business office (EBO) for a healthcare organization, what does the patient …
Modernize the Patient Financial Journey: Where, Why and How
If you receive a bill months after a service, how likely are you to remember what it’s for? What if you try to pay but mailing a check or calling an office during your work hours are the only options? As consumers, none of us would be happy if we were put in these positions. So why do we expect …
3 Strategies for Patient Engagement in the Revenue Cycle
In the past few years, high deductible healthcare plans have transformed how patient care is funded. More services are being paid for by patients or through their Health Savings Accounts. This has made patient engagement essential to the billing cycle to ensure medical bills don’t become seriously delinquent. Greater financial responsibility also means that patients have begun treating their healthcare …
Improving Patient Experience: Tips for Medical Billing Staff
In the past, patient satisfaction centered mainly on care received during a visit. Check-in experience and billing and payment issues weren’t considered. Now, healthcare systems and hospitals are putting more focus on improving the entire patient experience throughout their customer journey – including their financial experience. For the extended business office or medical billing staff who collects on patient payments, …
Enhancing Your Early Out Collection Strategy
As accounts receivable professionals know, early out collection (also known as pre-collection) is a typical practice to resolve healthcare bills and other late customer payments. It helps organizations shorten the revenue cycle and settle accounts as quickly as possible. Extended business offices also reduce overhead expenses for the companies your EBO is working with. EBO tactics help companies intervene before …
Top 5 Reasons Extended Business Offices Fail to Collect Past Due Payments
Working with a client as an extension of their business can be challenging. If you currently run (or are considering running) an extended business office, you may already know the challenges involved. However, between compliance, staff training and other back-office concerns, it can be hard to manage the roadblocks your agents experience during payment collection. If your business is interested …
How To Win Healthcare Outsourcing Business During COVID-19
In 2019, an article from NPR covered healthcare outsourcing for collections, the practice of hospitals suing patients and the financial strain it may cause. Since the pandemic, there have been several more news stories on healthcare collection tactics, bringing up the ethics of whether or not they should be taking place. Healthcare organizations care about the wellbeing of their patients. …
Transform Your Patient Collections with Technology
When it comes to the technology used to manage accounts receivable, healthcare and medical billing offices lag behind many other industries. Concerns over things like HIPAA compliance and software integration have stalled software adoption – but it shouldn’t. The trick to transforming patient collections is finding compliant, multi-function software tools that are easy to implement.Common Patient Collections StrugglesIt’s overwhelming to …
Managing Remote Staff in Healthcare Collections Long-Term
Share this ArticleIt has been a few months since companies transitioned their staff out of offices. By now, the immediate struggles of changing on-site employees into remote workers have been resolved. Now, healthcare collections and other accounts receivable businesses are starting to realize that managing remote staff may be a long term necessity. No one knows how long the Coronavirus …
How To Succeed in Healthcare Collections: Communication, Education and Empathy
Share this ArticleRecently, Accountsrecovery.net hosted a webinar on the New Dynamic of Healthcare Collections. The panelists, Jay Gonsalves, Christian Lehr and W. Judd Peak spoke about their experiences in medical collections, and what changes they’ve seen after the recent news surrounding litigation to recover unpaid medical bills. Throughout the hour-long conversation, the panel addressed provider concerns about risk to their …
