Estimating and Collecting Patient Responsibility

1. Estimating and Collecting Patient Responsibility Medical Billers and Coders

2. Estimating and collecting patient responsibility is a challenging task. Not only you must collect money directly from your patients but also you need to ensure patient satisfaction that guarantees repeat visits and positive online reviews. Patients who have an exact idea how much they owe are more likely to pay, which increases collections and ultimately improves practice cash flow. 92% of consumers want to know their payment responsibility prior to a provider visit, and 47% would switch providers to understand the costs of services at the time of scheduling appointments. With the growth of high-deductible payment plans and out-of-pocket responsibility for patients at an all-time high, collecting on those patients at time-of-service is crucial to your practice’s financial health. Estimating patient responsibility prior to claims adjudication is really tricky and so far, there is no estimation software or tool that serves the needs of smaller, independent practices. However, small practices can absolutely estimate patient responsibility successfully to minimize risks and effectively improve the critical task of improving patient collections.

3. Defining Patient Responsibility Patient responsibility is the total amount patient owes to their healthcare provider. It’s the portion of a medical bill that the patient is required to pay rather than their insurance provider. Patients with no health insurance are responsible for 100% of their medical bills. A patient with a High-deductible health plan (HDHP) is required to pay on their medical bills until their deductible is met and it is a higher amount on average. More number of patients are choosing a High-deductible health plan (HDHP) thinking they will not likely seek medical attention that specific year. Most of the time they have to see their provider more than they initially think, leaving them with more medical expenses than anticipated.

4. Collecting Patient Responsibly Portion • The best way to collect the patient responsibly portion is to ask for permission to put a credit card on file with authorization to charge up to a certain amount automatically directly after adjudication. • You can make it your financial policy to collect a percentage of the full estimated amount at the time of service. • Some numbers show that on average, practices only collect 50% (sometimes less) of patient responsibility after patients leave your office. This means that if you collect more than 50% of patient responsibility at the time of service, then you’re improving your collections rate. Non-collected patient responsibility portion increasing all over the country, make sure your practice has the right workforce to optimize their patient payments and claims process.

5. About Medical Billers and Coders We are catering to more than 40 specialties, Medical Billers and Coders (MBC) is proficient in handling services that range from revenue cycle management to ICD-10 testing solutions. The main goal of our organization is to assist physicians looking for billers and coders.

6. Get in Touch Medical Billers and Coders Email : info@medicalbillersandcoders.com Toll Free no: 888-357-3226