Most patients aren't accustomed to a request for payment up front. When providers make this request, patients naturally adopt the expectations they've derived from years of experience providing payment after the fact – sometimes long after the fact.
Doug Fielding, Vice President, Product Strategy, ZirMed: In those front-office or pre-appointment conversations when financial obligation and payment are discussed, the experience for patients is much more analogous to sitting at their kitchen table or in front of their laptop paying their monthly bills. As consumers, they naturally default to the expectations formed around other high-dollar costs — the call they get from their dealership letting them know just how costly that car repair will be, for example, or the monthly payment plan they set up to pay off a credit card balance.
Providers, therefore, must be equipped to field the questions associated with these patient expectations. The more information and transparency healthcare organizations can provide to patients up front, the stronger the positive impact will be on overall patient satisfaction — in part because proactive transparency and communication actually defies the entrenched expectation, formed over decades, that in healthcare you only discover your obligation after the fact.
If you would like to share your RCM best practices, please email Carrie Pallardy at cpallardy@beckershealthcare.com to be featured in the "RCM tip of the day" series.