Monthly Point-of-Service Collections Goals

RelayHealth recently co-sponsored a webinar with HFMA entitled Patient Consumerism: Collect or Charity which helped attendees learn strategies for optimizing reimbursement from patients who can pay and finding financial assistance for those that cannot. One of the most interesting tidbits from the webinar was a live polling question which asked attendees:

How are you doing with meeting your point-of-service cash collections goals?

The results were startling. One third of attendees who answered reported that they do not currently have a monthly cash collection goal in place. Nearly a quarter of poll respondents indicated that while they have a modest goal in place, they often fall short in their collection efforts. Think about it: 57% of respondents either have difficulty meeting their modest goals or don’t measure cash collection at all.

If you aren’t focusing on and measuring point-of-service cash collections, your facility might be leaving money on the table. Many facilities still only collect co-pays at the time of service, then struggle with collecting the balance post-service. However, the likelihood that patients will pay their portion of the bill may drop dramatically once they leave the hospital, and the amount collected post-discharge continues to drop as each month goes by. As a result, providers need to be more proactive and collect from patients at all points of service, as early and as often as possible.

 Here are the poll results. Which group would you place your facility in?

Finally, if you missed the webinar, you can view the recording at: http://media.mycrowdwisdom.com.s3.amazonaws.com/hfma/recordedwebinars/11AT60A1.mp4

This is a two-part post, also read:   Pre-Service Bill Estimation on the Rise