There is so much information out there on the Healthcare reform, healthcare finances, healthcare debt, and ideas on how to fix these things or make them better. I have a few articles that I will briefly summarize to help a future case study. These articles detail several different ways that upfront cost collection from patients before services will benefit the patient and the health care organizations.
The first article, A Reform-Era Revenue Cycle, discusses several different aspects of patient friendly billing It discusses charge capture, pricing, patient access, and the different systems some hospitals are putting in place to make up front billing easy for patients and effective for their organization.
It discusses what Concord Hospital, in Concord N.H., is doing to ensure the most correct patient charges. To do this, several hospitals are creating charge specialists and proving training to make sure these specialists can verify that charges are posted correctly the first time on a more consistent basis.
‘Now more than ever, IT systems than can obtain the documentation and the reports that are required to generate charges are critical for hospitals. Without such systems, it could be all but impossible for hospitals to meet their margins under reform.” (Health Financial Management Association, 2010) The article goes on to say that charge opportunities can make up upwards of 10%, and sometimes more, in net revenue for hospital departments. This is why it is so important for hospitals to get this right.
The Term Paper on Boston Children's Hospital: Measuring Patient
Our review shows that the current system of health care payment is not always value-based, and health care providers throughout the state are compensated at widely different rates for providing similar quality and complexity of services. … To control cost growth, we must shift how we purchase health care to align payments with value, measured by those factors the health care market should reward, ...
With a more centralized charge capture, it will make it easier to track charges from the moment a patient begins receiving services to the moment the patient is discharged. It allows teams to monitor what is being charged to make sure the same charge isn’t put on there more than once and that all appropriate charges are included. This system also allows errors to be identified immediately, rather than a few days or weeks later.
Before the hospitals can charge anything, pricing needs to be agreed on. ‘Providers have done more to meet reform goals for enhanced accountability and transparency of hospital pricing, in hopes of helping consumers understand not only what services will cost, but also how much they will have to contribute out of pocket.” (Health Financial Management Association, 2010) Integris Health, a 14 hospital system uses a Consumer Price line. This allows prospective patients to call and get an accurate price for what services would cost. This allows patients to sort of shop around at different hospitals. This kind of system tells patients up front what they can expect to pay and what insurance will pay. It also allows the hospital to collect exactly what the patient owes or gives them a jump start on getting the patient government assistance or qualified for charity care before they ever come in for their health service.
The article goes on to explain that with pricing and payment up front, it actually makes patient access easier. Patients are more likely to come into the hospital to seek treatment if they know up front what it will cost them. It eliminates the shock of getting a huge unexpected bill weeks later, in turn, patients are more satisfied.
In the next article, Patient Friendly Billing Project: Putting the Patient First, explains that the hospital bill itself is not only confusing for patients, but frustrating. It explains that a healthcare bill should be four things: clear, concise, correct and patient friendly. It breaks these down further into the following explanations.
The Essay on Mentally Ill Patients Hospitals State
The paper by Paul S. Appel baum, Crazy in the street is reflected on the implications of societies treatment to the mentally ill. He begins with in the past and present about the maltreatment of people suffering from psychotic illnesses. Where in New York City, these people find refuge in subway tunnels, and depend on cardboard fragments for comfort. These conditions are considered to be sprayed ...
Clear means that it’s written to easily be understood. It clearly covers exactly what services the patient received. The responsibilities of the patient and or the person paying the bill are clearly stated and easy to understand along with providing resources for additional help if it’s needed.
Concise means that the bill has the appropriate details and amount of information so that the patient and/or person paying the bill fully understand the message. It should also include resources to request additional and more specific information about the bill.
Correct means that what is on the bill is in fact, the correct services rendered to the patient along with easy ways for the patient to ask questions about any services included on the bill. Finally, we have patient friendly, which means in addition to the other three, the patient is also able to easily find the explanation of benefits. This includes the hospitals and the payers understanding of what insurance covers and any other benefits.
Steps to creating a better bill are discussed in the article as well. These steps would include letting know what patients can expect to pay up front, the billing cycles, benefits, insurance coverage, options the patient has to make payments, the hospitals expectations, and contact information for any help or questions the patient might have.
It’s also important for the healthcare organization to keep the most up to date insurance coverage and potential benefits from any local healthcare plans. Ensuring all of the patients questions are answered honestly and quickly. Communication is a big deal when it comes to billing and the hospitals business office needs to work with the payer organizations to make a better administrative relationship. Communication is a skill that employees need to possess, and if they don’t, training needs to be provided to allow employees an opportunity to strengthen that skill. And finally, making relationships with health insurance companies and other managed care companies simple so that patient confusion about coverage is reduced. Other changes that need to be made, according to the article, are regulatory ones. Offering education to patients is a big one. If we can educate our patient on how bills are made, how the hospitals decide to charge for and what not to charge for, etc.
The Term Paper on Patient Billing
Patient billing System is very important. These are collections of information’s about a patient’s health history. Doctors and the others personnel of the hospital like nurses write is medical records so that they can used the information’s again when the patient’s come back to the hospital. It is job of patient’s registry records works to make sure that the information is intact and available ...
Education for the start to finish process should be easily accessible for patients. Hospitals also need to look into package pricing and billing for services that understand that different consumers have different needs. “It is extremely difficult to provide clear, correct, concise and patient friendly bills if the amount due from the patient cannot be calculated accurately as a result of numerous regulatory changes. Healthcare organizations should work with regulators to help simplify payment changes that affect patient billing.” (hfm, 2001) My last article, Patient-Friendly billing, explains that a great hospital stay with the best care possible can be ruined when the patient later receives a 10-15 page bill that is confusing and in most instances, incorrect. Because the billing process is so complex, having upwards of 15,000 chargeable items to choose from, it’s easy for errors to be made.
In order to reduce these errors barriers need to be identified and solutions need to be put in place. That is where the Patient Friendly billing will come into play. Patient friendly billing will examine the billing process as a whole with an outcome that is expected to answer a lot of questions and close a lot of loop holes. It is expected the patient friendly billing will “include identification of the reasons for the complexity of the current billing system, the barriers to simplifying it and the best practices in patient billing communication that now exist.” (Clarke, 2000) Along with identifying the issues it will also make recommendations that can be put in place to simplify the process.
There is so much information out there on the Healthcare reform, healthcare finances, healthcare debt, and ideas on how to fix these things or make them better. I have a few articles that I will briefly summarize to help a future case study. These articles detailed several different ways that upfront cost collection from patients before services will benefit the patient and the health care organizations.
References
Clarke, R. (2000).
Patient-friendly billing. H&HN: Hospitals & Health Networks, 74(10), 86-86. This journal explained exactly what the patient friendly billing project was set up to do. It explained barriers in the billing system and how patient friendly billing would identify those issues and rectify them.
The Term Paper on BAAK Healthcare Management Solutions
BAAK consulting is a full service boutique consulting firm servicing small to mid-size health care facilities in the Mid-west. BAAK Management Consulting Firm is a Chicago based management consulting firm specializing in improving the profitability of mid to large size hospitals by providing industry expertise in the areas of Development, Facilities Management, Financial Operations, and Technology ...
HFM. (2001).
Patient Friendly Billing Project: Putting the Patient First. Hfm (Healthcare Financial Management)., 55(12), 56-60.
This article explains how to make a better bill. It covers that a bill should be clear, correct, concise and patient friendly. It breaks each of these down and explains how they can be implemented. It gives examples of each and discusses other regulatory changes that need to be made in order to make patient billing for effective and less confusing.
Patient Friendly Billing Project: Developing a culture of revenue cycle excellence. (2010).
Healthcare Financial Management: Journal Of The Healthcare Financial Management Association, 64(11), 1-7. This article discusses the importance of correct charge capture, pricing and how the two make patient access easier. It discusses how different healthcare organizations have implemented methods to create the most accurate bill for patients. It goes over why better billing creates happier patients and discusses ways organizations can continue to improve their billing process.
