Simplifying and modernizing patient medical bills is a crucial first step in improving the patient financial experience.
HHS selected Cleveland-based MetroHealth System as one of six systems to sit on the advisory board for the agency's "A Bill You Can Understand" contest. During the next several months, MetroHealth's chief patient experience officer, Sara Laskey, MD, will help select and implement winning bill templates from contest submissions.
Dr. Laskey and Harold Miller, CEO of nonprofit Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, spoke to The Plain Dealer about critical components of medical bill re-design.
1. Simplified language. Medical bills are often packed with industry jargon unintelligible to laymen patients. One of the most important parts of bill redesign is to use simplified language patients can understand. "We have to speak in real words so people know what they're dealing with," said Dr. Laskey.
2. A universal bill. By creating a standard billing glossary and design layout, Dr. Laskey hopes HHS' program could led to a single, streamlined bill used by all health systems across the country. This means patients can understand and become familiar with their medical bills across discrete sites of care.
3. Replace procedural codes with descriptive language. Most medical bills feature procedural codes that detail medical services administered during an episode of care. These strings of numbers may be meaningful to medical coding and payer reimbursement departments, but they are meaningless to patients, Mr. Miller said. The patient can see what tests they got, but they aren't given the opportunity to understand where the care was delivered, why it was delivered and what the outcome was, he added.
4. The bill as part of the financial system. Patients often receive individual invoices with a list of charges from multiple physicians, therapists, caregivers and insurance companies. The process can leave patients surrounded by reams of bills that do not correlate or speak to one another. "You could certainly make medical bills more understandable than they are today," said Mr. Miller. "But explaining each individual billing event does not help people understand how it all connects and why they got the services they got."