Every step in the revenue cycle is mission-critical for your practice to get paid, but there’s one process that’s easily overlooked when your billing team is overworked: Patient payments. Following up on outstanding balances is tedious and consumes valuable time that your staff needs to complete other tasks. However, patient collections are vital to your cash flow — especially in today’s healthcare landscape, where more than 30% of total practice revenue comes from patient pay.¹

With such a large portion of practice revenue at stake, it’s crucial that your revenue cycle management (RCM) solution delivers a seamless patient pay experience. A critical aspect of that is communication, yet many practices continue to self-sabotage by leaving patients to figure out the process for themselves. An estimated 37% of patients are confused by their medical bills, which means even with the best processes in place, there will always be demand to speak to a representative for support.² If your staff are too busy to answer calls, your patients will be left confused, frustrated, and significantly less likely to pay.

The Impact of Staffing Shortages

The healthcare industry may be on the upswing, but the pandemic’s lasting effects continue to permeate the workforce, especially in the billing office. A 2022 survey found that 63% of providers continue to struggle with staffing shortages in revenue cycle departments.³ For more than half of medical practices across the country, billing teams don’t have enough time to complete day-to-day functions, much less work through each patient’s specific questions and unique challenges. Factoring in other consequences of staffing shortages (errors, delays, and burnout), practices with understaffed offices are at a higher risk for cash flow disruptions and revenue loss.

Invest in Billing Expertise

The complexities of the healthcare revenue cycle demand specialized expertise and experience. If your team is constantly behind schedule trying to navigate the intricacies of different insurance plans, coding changes, and claim denials, they won’t have enough time to dedicate to patient billing and follow-ups. Moreover, successful patient billing requires more than having enough time to answer phones — it requires a deep understanding of medical coding, payer requirements, and compliance regulations. Connecting patients with inexperienced staff only serves to amplify billing confusion and decrease your chances of getting paid. 

The Benefits of an Outsourced RCM Solution

Outsourcing revenue cycle management alongside patient billing calls not only reduces the burden on your staff, but also gives your practice greater bandwidth to focus on clinical care and other essential tasks. Partnering with an outsourced provider who specializes in revenue cycle and patient billing management can help your practice:

• Maintain billing consistency. Rather than depending on your in-house team to oversee every step of the revenue cycle, transfer the task of patient communication to experts who have in-depth knowledge of billing practices and stay up-to-date on industry regulations. Outsourcing patient calls to a team of medical billing experts ensures your patients receive a premium experience and get the help they need to pay their bills faster.

• Become more cost-efficient. Staffing an entire billing office with full-time employees adds up, from recruitment to salaries to benefits and more. Choosing an outsourced patient communication team helps your practice substantially reduce overhead expenses while still benefiting from top-notch billing expertise and patient engagement.

• Enhance the patient experience. As the healthcare industry adopts a more consumerist approach to patient care, billing teams must prioritize professionalism, empathy, and patience during every patient interaction. This not only reduces confusion and accelerates time to payment, but also boosts practice reputation and fosters patient loyalty. 

• Scale your billing efforts. Keeping a fully staffed billing office makes it challenging to match the ever-changing needs of your practice. An outsourced team can easily scale to meet your practice’s billing demands during peak seasons or when your providers are less busy than usual. This flexibility ensures that patient billing communication continues to run smoothly, regardless of fluctuations in patient volumes.

Med USA’s RCM solutions offer a simpler way for patients to pay their bills, get questions answered, and resolve disputes. Our team handles all incoming calls — from insurance updates to billing questions — and outgoing messages — reminding patients of their upcoming payments — for every size of medical practice. When patients call a representative Med USA operator, they benefit from little to no wait times (under 15 seconds on average), compliance-centered communication, and a friendly voice on the other end of the line ready to help clear up confusion and make it easier than ever to pay.

Want to Learn More About the Advantages of Outsourcing Revenue Cycle Management and Patient Calls?

Talk to a Med USA representative today!

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Sources

1. Decoding Millennial financial health: Generation Revealed. (2017). TransUnion. http://images.e.transunion.com/Web/TransUnion/%7B2bd464b9-a9e6-4da3-904c-a5967a7da787%7D_TransUNion-Millennial-Study-Campaign-Report.pdf?_ga=2.259512847.481657226.1515180863-1154452940.1515180863 
2. AKASA. (2022, December 16). Nearly 40% of Americans Confused by Medical Bills [Press Release]. https://akasa.com/press/nearly-40-of-americans-confused-by-medical-bills/ 
3. Synchrony. (2023, April 6). Study Finds Healthare Providers Looking to Outsource Revenue Cycle Management Processees [Press release]. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/study-finds-healthcare-providers-looking-to-outsource-revenue-cycle-management-processes-301791790.html