The benefits of patient financing for both patients and providers

During Becker’s Hospital Review‘s 7th Annual Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Annual Meeting, in a workshop sponsored by CareCredit, Traci Rieckmann, CareCredit’s vice president of strategic account management for health systems, and Kimberly Scaccia, vice president of revenue for Mercyhealth — a leading regional health system in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois — discussed how current payment options don’t work well for patients or providers. They shared insights into how CareCredit can help.

Three key takeaways were:

1. As healthcare costs have risen, so has the proportion of costs that Americans are paying out of pocket. Deductibles have risen 25 percent in five years, according to a 2020 Kaiser Family Foundation survey. And 23 percent of people surveyed in a Federal Reserve Board report said they declined medical care in 2020 because of cost. That’s led many individuals not to get care. “Even if the doctor says you need something, people are choosing not to get that care,” Ms. Rieckmann said. “You know what that means. It pushes it down the line and sometimes we see more severe issues with people’s health and a decline in quality of life. Nobody wants that.”
2. There’s a ripple effect: when patients struggle to pay, health systems struggle to collect. Providers frequently report difficulty with collections, Ms. Rieckmann and Ms. Scaccia said. Even when patients agree to a payment plan, it costs postage, administrative time and the expense of delayed receivables. “We want to take away that uncertainty for providers and patients,” Ms. Rieckman said. “How can we help people pay for the care they need? And how can we make sure that providers get paid upfront so you can keep your systems operating, successful, growing and innovative?”
3. The CareCredit credit card provides a solution that extends credit to patients. This solution has benefits for both patients and providers:
   1. It reduces barriers and helps patients access to care. CareCredit helps provide patients with options and clarity about what the payment process is going to look like, giving them greater visibility and control.
   2. It gives providers a payment option to offer to patients, which helps reduce providers’ time and effort spent on collections. “Twenty years ago, we could go out and collect the money, we could go to the payers, we could work on our aged receivables, we could work with our early-out vendors,” Ms. Scaccia said. “That day is gone.”
   3. It speeds the time to payment for providers. Under most circumstances, providers receive payment within two days. Then, the money owed by patients is owed to CareCredit.
   4. It removes the provider from the collections process, which is better for the patient-provider relationship. “If your patients are on payment plans, and they miss paying, who’s calling them?” Ms. Scaccia said. “Today, you are. So, who are they mad at? You.” CareCredit removes the provider from having to collect, she said.
   5. Patients feel more satisfaction and in control. Data from CareCredit indicates that 82 percent¹ of patients agree completely or somewhat that having a healthcare credit card allows them to be responsive to their family’s healthcare needs and not delay care.

There are many challenges in the patient payment space. CareCredit offers a solution that gives patients and providers more control, more transparency and more options.

To learn more about CareCredit, visit www.carecredit.com/beckers

¹ CareCredit Path to Care, conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey on behalf of CareCredit, October 2021