How to help improve the patient financial journey

Surprises can be fun — surprise birthday parties, surprise flowers delivered to your office, surprise “thinking of you” text messages from your partner.

Surprise health and wellness bills, on the other hand? Not so much. And yet, many Americans have encountered unplanned health expenses in their lifetime. In a Morning Consult survey, 20 percent of respondents said they or a family member received a surprise medical bill in 2022. And even when care is planned, the medical billing process can feel time consuming and confusing. In fact, 72 percent of consumers surveyed in InstaMed’s 2022 Trends in Healthcare Payments report said they’re confused by medical bills.

That’s why the patient financial journey is so important — for you and your patients. This article can help you learn more about the patient financial experience and how to help improve yours.

What Is the Patient Financial Experience?

The patient financial journey encompasses a person’s health and wellness care costs from beginning to end. Ideally, it should start before patients undergo any kind of service and extend beyond treatment as well. It includes their experience and satisfaction throughout the entire revenue cycle management process.

When done well, the patient financial journey keeps people informed and helps them manage their payment expectations throughout the entire process. Improving the patient journey starts with a well-organized and streamlined process that prioritizes mutual trust between patients and providers.

7 Strategies to Help Improve the Patient Financial Journey

Here are several ways to enhance the patient-provider relationship by implementing helpful patient engagement strategies.

1. Offer financial counseling prior to service

To get the patient financial journey off on the right foot, consider contacting patients before their visit. Help them explore treatments and providers within their insurance network, as well as additional ways to save on costs and pay for the care they want or need now (more on that below). Consider also sharing accepted payment methods, promotional materials, and flexible financing options that may be available to them.

Train your employees to be compassionate, effective communicators as well. Over-communicating services, procedures, and associated charges helps keep everyone informed and on the same page. Ask your employees to discuss costs at a high level and address policies and expectations upfront so patients can plan accordingly.

2. Provide multiple ways to communicate with patients

Consider offering patients several ways to communicate with you, and ask them which method they prefer. For example, patients may prefer to correspond via their:

• Mailing address
• Personal email address
• Home phone number
• Cell phone number

For patients with email addresses and smartphones, you can include an option for them to choose whether or not they want to receive email campaigns and SMS messages. Some patients may never check their email, while others may not answer a phone call when they don’t recognize the number on the other end. By letting patients choose which method works best for them, you can help close another potential communication gap.

Consider leaning into user-friendly technology in your office, too. When patients and staff use tablets to update medical information and sign in, for instance, your office can run more efficiently, and your team can focus on more important tasks.

3. Give transparent and accurate cost estimates before patients receive care

To avoid any billing miscommunication, it’s a good idea to get ahead of it.

You can help improve this financial pipeline along a patient’s health and wellness journey in several ways. For instance:

If you don’t know the answer to a patient’s financial question in the moment, you can ask for their contact information and follow up with them later once you know for sure.

4. Provide a cost estimator tool

A majority of patients want healthcare transparency so it’s a great idea to invest in tools that will help patients understand their financial responsibilities for care. Additionally, make sure your site correctly reflects the types of insurance coverage you accept as well.

Provide ways for patients to pay for health and wellness care virtually, too. It makes sense to include popular payment options such as PayPal and Apple Pay, along with the CareCredit health and wellness care credit card. These helpful tools offer patients convenient payment solutions.

5. Help steer patients toward financial aid opportunities

If you offer grants, health and wellness financing services, and other aid opportunities, make sure you let patients know. Communicating these options early and clearly can help patients opt for care.

Bottom line: Consider showing patients you’re willing to advocate for them.

6. Gather patient feedback (and act on it)

You can measure your entire patient payment journey by going directly to the source: Ask patients for feedback about their experience. You can implement customer experience insight tools such as Net Promoter Score, online surveys, and in-person questionnaires, and sprinkle them throughout different parts of the process. If a patient had anything less than great service or found it difficult to make a payment, you’ll want to know so you can make positive changes.

Knowledge is one thing, but action is another — if specific issues continue to arise, make sure you act on that feedback to help improve your systems in place.

7. Stay connected

The patient financial journey shouldn’t end once a patient receives care and pays their bill. You can nurture this relationship and keep in touch.

Consider staying connected via a patient portal and through other communications, including email and direct marketing. Remember, health is a journey, not a destination. It’s essential to prioritize patient engagement solutions if you want to keep your operation top of mind for their next visit.

Now that we’ve covered smart strategies to help improve your patient financial experience, let’s dig into the benefits of doing so.

5 Key Benefits That Can Result From an Improved Patient Financial Journey

A strengthened patient-provider relationship brings many advantages.

1. Better patient experience

When you help put patients at ease by educating and empowering them, they may be more likely to return and refer people to you.

2. Higher patient retention rate

Patients can easily shop around for health and wellness care thanks to online reviews. By creating a clear, comfortable patient experience, they may stick around and share their positive opinion with others.

3. Fewer denials and revenue adjustments

When you nix confusing terms and paperwork, you can reduce miscommunication and the back-and-forth of denials and revenue adjustments.

4. Lower cost to collect

By streamlining billing and offering multiple ways to pay — especially with access to technology and software — you can save on costs in the long run.

5. Reduced bad debt exposure

First, it’s a good idea to become familiar with your numbers and understand how your facility calculates bad debt. From there, you can help correct cash-flow issues by getting to the root of the breakdown and implementing improved processes.

Above all, improving patient experience — and therefore, patient loyalty — will help you and your patients.

Create Better Patient Financial Journey Outcomes

When you provide clear communication about payment options from the start, your patients may feel more confident about getting the care they want and need. Remember, improved patient financial experience can translate to the success of your practice, too, in the form of higher patient retention rates, fewer denials, reduced bad debt exposure, and more.

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