The Revenue Cycle leader at TransUnion Healthcare believes the patients to be the new payers in healthcare.
Jonathan Wiik, revenue cycle leader at TransUnion Healthcare, has revealed that in the evolving healthcare payment landscape, the patients are the new payers and they now represent a staggering 30% of the billing revenue.
He believes that now the healthcare industry is seeing a totally new world when it comes to the payers of medical care.
The delicate balance of billing revenue has vastly shifted towards the patients who now account for 30% of healthcare revenue if witnessed from the back end. For example, if a hospital bills $1000 for a medical service, about $300 of that total amount will be paid by the patient.
Wiik said that the unexpected evolution has been set in place by amplified utilization of high-deductible healthcare plans along with higher copays. These have, in turn, fueled significant trends in consumerism, boosted demand for transparency and increasingly calls for affordability.
These days a growing number of providers are focusing on patient experience and it’s really important for them to comprehend the fact that the biggest dissatisfier they face is patient bills.
Wiik said, “You can do everything perfectly but when the bill comes the patient could still have some pretty negative things to say if that process wasn’t engaged and focused on them. It’s important for providers to engage patients early through whatever mechanism they can.”
He further stated that a growing number of healthcare providers haven’t started utilizing mobile technology whereas the ease of access provided through mobile technology is the desire number one for all healthcare consumers.
The patients need to be engaged early and the practices and providers should readily protect their earned revenue through a procedure called financial clearance. They should appreciate the reality that revenue leakage will definitely if providers fail to position themselves to engage the patients early. Wiik said that all the mentioned will be the key takeaways.
He said that it was really important that the patient should be treated as a consumer.
