Title: Online Bill Pay - The Payment Option Patients Want - and Providers Need
By James J. Moynihan
Offering online bill-pay is a huge advantage for providers. Some of the benefits – such as less paperwork and streamlined processes -- are obvious. Others come into focus over time: decreased paper, postage, and administrative costs; a lower cost per transaction; faster resolution of billing disputes; and most importantly, accelerated payments -- by an average of seven days.
But providers are not the sole beneficiaries of this technology. For patients, online bill-pay simplifies the payment process and provides a convenience that encourages loyalty. Today, over 60 million Americans (and you are probably one of them) bank online, and half of them use online banking Websites to pay bills. It’s technology that patients want – and increasingly expect.
ValleyCare Health System, a California-based not-for-profit private community healthcare system with 212 beds and a medical staff of over 300, began offering an online bill-pay option in 2008. Between August 2008 and March 2009, monthly online payments skyrocketed from $3,300 to $147,200.
Cindy Rudow is the Director of Patient Financial Services at Valley Care. “Our community is very technologically savvy,” says Rudow, “so we wanted to provide the opportunity for them to pay their hospital accounts online. We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel for online payment functionality. Our CEO pushed us to find a vendor to arrange online payments and pre-registrations, so we contacted U.S. Bank, who worked with our Internet provider to offer online bill pay functionality with minimal start-up costs. In fact, we simply added the following on our statements: You can now pay your account online at www.valleycare.com.”
ValleyCare promotes its Web-based payment options on both printed patient statements and the home page of its Website. Rudow observes that ValleyCare has received payments much more quickly since moving online and suggests room for further improvement. “We think we can increase the percentage of patients paying online because our pre-registration staff has started encouraging patients to make copayments and deductibles prior to service.” How much has been saved by moving online? Rudow explains, “We haven’t evaluated the per-transaction cost, but we know we are saving phone calls to Customer Service to provide credit-card information, our patients and guarantors are saving postage, and our staff is saving time opening, distributing, and processing mail.”
ValleyCare isn’t alone. Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) has also witnessed enormous growth in its online bill payments. Dave Schinderle, former Vice President of Finance-Hospital Operations, recalls, “We had identified that nearly all of our patient families were computer literate. We didn’t have many parents asking for Web-based payments; however, we felt the time was right to move forward. After extensive research, CHOC selected U.S. Bank’s customized Web-based healthcare payments application that also offered a secure payment link from CHOC’s home page. The application was quickly activated before CHOC’s patient accounting team even began to notify parents of the new payment opportunity.” The results were immediate: over $15,000 in payments was received via the CHOC Website within the first month. “The payment volumes have continued to grow,” Schinderle observes, “clearly demonstrating the value of offering this convenience to patients and parents.”
U.S. Bank has been providing Web-based revenue-cycle solutions to the healthcare provider community since 2007 and today serves over 12,000 users, including 28 of the top health systems in the U.S. (based on revenue). U.S. Bank Healthcare Payment Management (HPM) is a leading payment-assurance tool for all patient self-pay receivables -- including co-pays, deductibles and after-insurance at the point of care, the central billing office, and online. HPM is also the only product of its type to earn a peer-review designation from HFMA. To learn more about U.S. Bank’s healthcare payment solutions, call 866-285-0933 or e-mail usbankhealthcare@usbank.com.
Hop Wechsler also contributed to this article.
MetroLines