Though they’ve always been “patient statements,” the content and layout of those financial summaries were not always designed with the patients who received them in mind. Just ask Kim Cardell, a graphic designer, and Diane Clark, a graphics coordinator, both based in Toledo, Ohio with over 10 years experience in patient statement creation. According to Cardell and Clark, the wording, style and overall design of statements gone by were tailored more for the internal audience of providers and payers.
Those days are over.
Cardell and Clark report that today’s statements are more intentional and less traditional in terms of design, reflecting an industry more in tune with its audience and ready for progressive approaches. Both now collaborate to create materials that are customized to reach patients who are more actively involved in the payment of their healthcare and thus need to understand their charges. In their experience, the Patient Friendly Billing standards purveyed by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) in recent years have become more accepted as providers aim to better relate to patients.
Here are a few practical, tactical design tips from Cardell, Clark and their graphic design colleagues. Drawing upon their years of specializing in patient statement and medical form production, these pros have great ideas that can turn statements into meaningful patient communications tools.
Overall Approach to Design
• Bring in your brand. Abandon the traditional layout and look of past statements, and instead use statements as opportunities to convey branding and personality that will appeal to your patients and help them quickly identify the billing statement issuer. Be sure to make your logo visible in the mail. You can increase open rates by placing your logo, a familiar visual for patients, in the return address window
• Go custom & get colorful. The increased access to roll-fed, digital printing solutions makes colorful, custom designs more feasible and affordable. No longer must you buy reams of paper stock and print in bulk for cost efficiencies. Make the most of today’s versatile printing capabilities that allow you to make adjustments as often as you’d like while eliminating the hassle of managing an inventory of pre-printed stock.
• Bold text and increase font size for section headlines. To help readers easily identify different sections within your statement, bold headlines and make the text larger than the text below. Use sans serif fonts such as Arial for a fresh, modern design and try to avoid underlining as a method for highlighting information - this tends to clutter your statement design.
• Use call-out boxes and shading. Boxes and shading can visually separate information, making a patient’s review of overall content more simple and succinct. Strategic use of color in shading can draw attention to important info while ensuring that the material is still readable.
• Soften the design with subtle touches. Rounded corners on call-out boxes, a pleasing color palette and positive graphic elements can all serve to give a statement a more appealing appearance and approachable feel.
Placement of Key Information & Visual Elements
• Place key info front & center. Lead with the most important information. Always place the amount due and the due date on the first page of the statement and use color to make this stand out from the rest of the statement. Include both pieces of information on the main section of the statement and on the statement coupon too.
• List payment options prominently and often. Provide as many payment options as possible to help accelerate payment and list these prominently on the front page. If possible, add this information to subsequent pages as well. For online payments, be sure to list the web address and for pay-by-phone options, include the telephone number for reference. For credit card payments by mail, ensure this information can be provided within the statement coupon.
• Don’t overwhelm patients with information. Provide the appropriate amount of information for patients to make informed decisions about their financial responsibilities but don’t include unnecessary information such as billing codes or medical jargon. Ask yourself, “Is this necessary to include on the statement? If yes, does this clearly communicate the information?”
• List date on the stub. Include the statement date on the stub to streamline payment processing when it is returned with payment.
• Provide contact info on each page. Place contact information on every page of the statement (and not on perforated portions that will be removed) so that patients always have quick access to your Billing Department’s phone number, mailing and email addresses.
• Make your logo visible in the mail. You can increase open rates by placing your logo, a familiar visual for patients, in the return address window.
• Guide patients to offer updated information. Give prominence to areas where patients can update personal and insurance information. Capturing fresh information is vital to the collections process, so use the statement as an opportunity to prompt patients to list new information.
• Include FAQs. Providing answers to your most commonly fielded questions will help patients find the information they need while minimizing customer service call volume.
• Provide online resources. Use your patient statement as an opportunity to direct traffic to online resources. Encouraging patients to visit your hospital’s website for billing-related information may also increase adoption of online payment.
• Include a Spanish customer-service option. For Spanish-speaking patients with questions about their bill, include a brief statement in Spanish that lists the contact information for your Billing Department.
Automation, Organization & Communication
• Use 2D tags and bar codes. Using scannable bar codes can help automate outbound sorting and mailing processes, verify data and track what version of the statement design is in use, as well and denote the number of pages that should be included in a statement.
• Leverage scanlines to automate payment collection. Automating the process of depositing, posting and managing patient payments received through the mail can help you get paid faster and cut costs. If your organization uses a lockbox for payments received through the mail, ensure your scanline is placed in an area, away from the perforation line to avoid unnecessary tears or rips to this important piece of information.
• Include wellness tips & additional messaging. When possible, use the statement to share announcements, offer wellness reminders or convey pertinent information about your institution to make the statement more meaningful and useful to recipients.
• Test, test, test. When making changes to your statement coupon, ensure that your updated coupon design can be scanned and processed by your lockbox.
Discover how your organization can improve patient satisfaction and accelerate collections by leveraging patient-friendly statement design. Call 877.EMDEON.6 (877.363.3666) or visit us online to learn how Emdeon ExpressBill Services can provide clear, concise patient statements that leverage existing financial data to create effective patient communications.
Better Statements by Design: Tips from Graphic Designers to Transform Statements Into Patient Friendly Communications
The Impending Patient Experience Movement
Revenue Cycle Management Solutions to Address Financial Aspects of the Patient Experience
“Patient Experience.” The term itself may be fairly new in the healthcare industry, but the meaning behind it has been around a long while.
Fifteen years ago or more, providers referred to it as “patient satisfaction” and conducted phone and fill-in surveys to gauge how those who received care in hospitals and health systems felt about their treatment. Next the industry took up the cause of “customer service,” directing staff to perceive patients as customers and to employ the tenets of great guest assistance. Turns out, those previous incarnations of this concept were just stepping stones on a path that is, at last, becoming a paved highway within the healthcare industry.
Today, the idea of “patient experience” is more important and meaningful than ever. Many providers are addressing the totality of patients’ interactions with their institutions, from pre-registration to discharge and beyond, as a paramount issue. Even after all the surveys, customer service programs and pep talks, the patient-institutional provider relationship remained less than satisfactory, and as the market has morphed to become a more consumer-driven arena, there’s no denying the essential nature of great patient experience in every point of contact and care as well as policy and procedure.
A new focus in the healthcare industry is making the patient experience a formally organized, institutional priority. In 2010, the industry experienced the inaugural Patient Experience Summit, as well as the launch of the first Association for Patient Experience. An October 2010 study on the topic by HealthLeaders Media indicates that 72% of providers have heightened the priority of patient experience from just a year ago. These milestones herald an industry-wide awakening. Patient experience is now officially a C-suite standard, a guiding mindset for every decision made and a defining differentiator for an institution in its field.
In the past, patient satisfaction programs were often maintained by the marketing department, perhaps supported by an interdepartmental committee that fielded inquiries, complaints and survey results. In today’s patient experience movement, the entire institution is involved and fundamental, foundational changes are occurring in all corners of hospitals and healthcare systems. There’s simply no stone that can be left unturned when seeking to provide the best experience for patients.
One important area that could be overlooked when improving the patient experience is the financial side of healthcare. Both insurance plan coverage and patient billing and payment are areas that should be highly impacted by the new movement, especially in light of the nationwide shift to Consumer-Directed Health Plans (CDHP). Because increasing numbers of patients have greater responsibility for the compensation for their care, if not all the responsibility, the industry has already started evolving to accommodate today’s consumer-patients. Providers are relying on responsive innovations to make financial communications and payment alternatives more patient-friendly, with the ultimate goal of better experiences all around.
Emdeon’s related services are excellent examples of current innovations to assist providers with the financial aspects of the patient experience. As a leader in Revenue Cycle Management Solutions, Emdeon has developed an array of services to boost providers’ administrative capabilities in the CDHP era. Just as the patient experience movement addresses the full circle of care, from pre-access to post-discharge issues, Emdeon’s solutions offer 360°, end-to-end solutions to help providers improve their patients’ overall financial experience at their facility.
• Emdeon Pre-Encounter Analytics: Enables providers to help "triage" patients' financial situations before they arrive by quickly and accurately obtaining eligibility and benefits information. Batches of patient data for the next day's scheduled patients are sent to Emdeon before the start of business thereby eliminating any manual work and delays at the time of patient registration.
• Emdeon Assistant: Simplifies patient registration through real-time automation of patient eligibility and benefits information verification tasks. Emdeon Assistant easily interfaces with most existing registration systems and channels efficient search requests to contracted carriers with responses generally returned in seconds minimizing patient registration wait times.
• Emdeon Patient Responsibility Estimator®: Delivers quick access to estimates of patients' out-of-pocket expenses so providers can clearly inform patients of expected costs and collect or hold funds during scheduling, registration, at time-of-service or at check-out.
• Emdeon Quick Pay: Provides convenient, real-time processing of physical and electronic patient payments during Patient Access to collect and process co-payments, deductibles, pre-payments, financial responsibility estimates or even outstanding balances before service.
• Emdeon Patient Connect: Allows providers to leverage integrated patient billing solutions, print, online and point-of-service collection tools, to simplify, clearly communicate and automate remaining patient balances.
These Emdeon solutions represent the financial side of a more deeply integrated approach now being employed to achieve better patient experiences before, during and after service is rendered. Going far beyond initial customer service strategies, these patient-focused solutions extend fundamentally practical, compassionate support and true empathy for patients. Adding these kinds of services within the revenue cycle, providers are able to incorporate the concept of “patient care” beyond the clinical environment, into what was once perceived as impersonal, administrative interactions.
Discover Revenue Cycle Management Solutions to enhance the financial side of the patient experience by visiting us online or calling 877.EMDEON.6 (877.363.3666) today!
Want to get more involved in the patient experience for the industry? Join the Association for Patient Experience, a non-profit, multidisciplinary think-tank of healthcare representatives committed to advancing patient experience within their organizations. Email patientexperience@ccf.org for additional information.
What's Good for Them is Good for You: Discover How Your Organization Stands to Gain from Patient Friendly Billing Practices
Call it good business, or simply good karma. Hospital systems that commit to putting their patients first in financial communications can improve patient satisfaction and their bottom line. Here’s a look at why these investments lead to better financial outcomes.
Investment: Patient-friendly statements
Outcome: Fewer customer service calls
Historically, financial communications in this industry have been provider and payer centric, meaning the language and structure of statements and documentation were geared toward trade audiences. Little consideration was given to patients who might need to review and interpret payment-related materials in order to take action.
Today, more patients are directly responsible for at least a portion of the payments required for their care. By improving billing statements so patients can make sense of costs and payment requirements, providers eliminate barriers to collect. Patients who understand what they owe and what they’re paying for are more likely to pay promptly and in full. Likewise, they’re also less likely to require customer service support, reducing staff workload.
Investment: Automated, third-party billing distribution solutions
Outcome: Faster collections process, reduced busy work for staff
With the overwhelming volume of outbound billing statements, the traditional ‘print, fold, stuff and stamp’ mailing process can become a burden to staff and a barrier to prompt payment collection. Proactive healthcare organizations that are focused on improving the revenue cycle are no longer in the mailroom business; instead, they partner with vendors that can quickly and accurately disseminate billing statements.
Today’s third-party billing solutions easily alleviate the tasks of statement mailing. These state-of-the-art bill printing and distribution services absorb all the conventional, time-consuming tasks associated with mailings, eliminating the need for internal staff to handle the paper shuffle. These services receive billing data electronically from hospital systems and, using modern automation, print and mail statements expediently. This means patients get statements more quickly, aiding in faster turnaround time for collections.
Investment: Address scrubbing solutions
Outcome: Minimized staff labor & better patient communications
Outdated mailing addresses— and manual processes for handling undeliverable mail— can become real impediments to collecting payments.
Hospital systems investing in patient friendly practices integrate address correction services into the core of their statement mailing processes. By outsourcing these services to a qualified third-party vendor that integrates address cleansing technology, providers automatically collect and correct more bad addresses greatly improving the accuracy of patient address lists. When patients receive billing statements promptly, they are able to pay and more quickly interact with their providers as needed.
Ready to do right by your patients and your hospital system? Look to Emdeon ExpressBill Services as the single source for your patient billing needs.
Emdeon ExpressBill Services provides comprehensive solutions to better manage the patient billing process. From the creation of easy-to-read patient statements to the integration of automation throughout the billing process, Emdeon ExpressBill Services streamlines all aspects of patient billing, making it friendlier for patients and easier for you.
Ready to improve cash flow by automating your outbound statement printing and mailing? Call 877.EMDEON.6 (877.363.3666) or visit us online to learn how Emdeon ExpressBill Services can improve cash flow through prompt, easy-to-understand billing.
The Great Expectations of Payment Integrity: Practical Solutions to Take You from Anticipation of Write-offs to Expectation of Full Payments
Unfortunately, with today’s healthcare system, sometimes providers have to chase payments, just to collect even a portion of what is owed to them.
While undesirable, it’s understandable how this inverted standard took hold. With the industry’s complicated fee structures, multilayered services and contracted relationships with multiple payers, providers are constantly challenged to achieve payment integrity.
Emdeon is aiming to change all that by infusing the principle—and practice—of payment integrity into the healthcare revenue cycle one hospital system at a time with Emdeon Payment Integrity Services. These targeted services help providers identify and collect underpayments, aging receivables and denied claims from payers.
Already deeply integrated into providers’ businesses, Emdeon knows the first step in achieving this goal is to meet providers where they are now—down in the trenches trying to get paid. The more revenue that can be collected, the healthier and stronger a hospital system will be to make the shift to true payment integrity.
To that end, Emdeon Payment Integrity Services offers comprehensive, responsive solutions to help collect what’s owed.
• Emdeon Audit & Recovery Services: provides actionable analysis and customized solutions that allow providers to make sure reimbursements from payers meet contracted rates to reduce the risk of underpayments
• Emdeon Accounts Receivable Management: extends the capabilities of providers’ staffs, with focus on collecting payment on aging receivables from payers
• Emdeon Denial & Appeals Services: gives providers practical, tactical support to successfully appeal denied claims and reduce write-offs
Often during the process of audit and recovery and through implementation of effective accounts receivable management, providers are able to identify and address patterns of problems, and methodically eliminate them from their infrastructure. Though responsive tactics are likely required on an ongoing basis, providers are eventually able to look ahead to integrate integrity into their processes in order to prevent future issues and improve performance. Emdeon has a solution for prevention for providers ready to move forward with ‘great expectations’ of getting paid.
Emdeon Performance Improvement & Prevention Services: integrates integrity initiatives into providers’ overall processes to prevent payment problems and repetitive issues related to denials in the long term.
Of course, providers must be active participants on the journey to payment integrity. Even when backed by services like those offered by Emdeon, provider leadership and team members must take substantive strides to make the shift. Here are some items that should be on the To Do lists of every provider seeking to integrate payment integrity.
• Internal audit: a thorough self-examination to determine organizational strengths and weaknesses and assess potential system improvements
• Clinical component: infusion of clinical standards into the billing process to better address issues of medical necessity, etc. that often lead to denied claims
• External observation: connect with other provider organizations that have achieved payment integrity to gain applicable insights and ideas
• Staff training: investments in internal staff to ensure they are knowledgeable, engaged and equipped to best identify and address payment issues
• Open communications: integrated methods for keeping all internal team members informed and interconnected, so that all departments work cohesively toward a common goal
Want help identifying and collecting underpaid, late and denied claims? Call 877.EMDEON.6 (877.363.3666) or visit us online to learn how Emdeon Payment Integrity Services can protect your bottom line.
HFMA Webinar: "Creating a Patient Financial Profile Prior to Patient Arrival to Increase Up-Front Payments and Reduce Bad Debt"
Attend an HFMA Webinar to Learn More
As patients bear more responsibility for direct payment of their healthcare costs, there is an increased financial risk that hospital systems may not be fully compensated for services they provide.
Traditional revenue cycle management strategies typically triage this balance sheet issue mid-way through or after the patient encounter. Unfortunately, this approach limits the options available to providers to maximize payment and reimbursement.
In this session, Lakeland Healthcare will explore a new strategy for optimizing the financial health of provider organizations. Using a Patient Financial Profile System, providers can reduce their risk of denied claims, underpayments, bad debt and more easily identify and forecast charity care cases before the patient even receives medical treatment.
Providers will learn how to create a comprehensive Patient Financial Profile System using the following data points:
• Address verification
• Commercial insurance and managed care eligibility and benefits verification
• Patient financial responsibility estimation
• Credit Score
• Healthcare Risk Score
• Income
• Hospital Payment history
• Federal Poverty Guidelines
After This Webinar You Will:
• Understand how to create a Patient Financial Profile System for your organization
• Learn how to maximize revenue from claim reimbursements and patient payments.
Using the Patient Financial Profile System, you will discover how to optimize your pre-admission workflow by creating three categories: Patient Payment, Charity Predicted and Medicaid Eligible.
Register now to attend an HFMA Webinar March 16th 3:00 to 4:30 pm EST to hear more about this topic! Lakeland HealthCare will share best practices and recommendations for using the Patient Financial Profile System.
Visit Emdeon at a Tradeshow near You
Emdeon exhibits at many tradeshows throughout the year where you can learn more about our full suite of Revenue and Payment Cycle Management Solutions, as well as, new products and features on the horizon. Come visit us at the following tradeshows:
March
• SEHAM: March 2-4; Tunica, MS
• NC HFMA: March 9-11; Pinehurst, NC
• AZ HFMA Spring Conference: March 23-25; Chandler, AZ
• North / South California HFMA: March 23-25; Sacramento, CA
• HFMA Texas State Conference: March 27-29; Austin, TX
April
• Greater Kansas City Medical Mgr. Assoc: April 6; Overland Park, KS
• Hudson Valley NY HFMA Annual: April 7; Tarrytown, NY
Make a Statement When Sending Statements
Maximize Your Messaging with Versatile, Affordable Patient Statement Inserts
When it comes to keeping patients informed, there’s no such thing as “too much communication”—especially regarding billing and payment. That’s why it’s important for providers to use every point of patient contact as an opportunity to meaningfully connect.
Did you know that patient statements can offer frequent and cost effective opportunities to communicate with your patients? Every patient receives them; every patient is compelled to open, read and keep them. With the inclusion of informational inserts, letters or brochures, your patient statement mailings can become more than a basic communication of financial status and expectation. They can become effective communication tools that reach an attentive audience.
Here are just a few of the many ways hospitals can use statement inserts to maximize patient friendly communications.
• Highlight key points about the statement itself. Inserts provide a convenient way to explain updates or changes to patient statements. When a statement format changes, patients often need guidance to understand their new bill. By creating a “Guide to Understanding Your Bill” that includes a picture of the newly designed sample statement with a brief explanation of where to find key pieces of information, you can cut down on the number of phone calls from patients asking "how to read" their new statement.
• Announce new financial services, policies or procedures. Inserts can also be used to convey important news regarding services, policies or procedures relevant to patient billing. Adding new bill payment options for patients to pay over the phone or online? Adding an insert in your patient statements highlighting the relevant phone number and bill payment website can help drive adoption of these new services.
• Share updates or reminders about hospital events, locations or programs. Inserts can announce news regarding the opening of new facilities or clinic locations or the launch of expanded services. In addition, they can also help remind recipients of previously announced news, reinforcing overall patient communications campaigns.
• Offer patients the chance to submit input. Inserts can be used to collect input or information from recipients. You can create a quick survey to get feedback or encourage recipients to submit current contact or insurance information. The completed form can simply be included when payments are mailed back.
Another compelling reason to use inserts? They’re cost effective. Rather than sending separate mailings to announce important news and information, hospitals can power-pack updates into their patient statements. For only the cost of printing, inserts maximize the usefulness of statement mailings exponentially.
Also, statement inserts support the HFMA’s PATIENT FRIENDLY BILLING® initiatives. Patient friendly billing practices advocate making information accessible while reaching patients frequently and directly with pertinent updates.
Make a positive statement about your commitment to patient friendly billing practices. Call 877.EMDEON.6 (877.363.3666) or visit us online to discover how Emdeon Patient Communications can provide companion print and mail services to keep your patients informed.
Attention HFMA Chapter Officers and Leaders!
Thought Leadership Opportunities for your Local Chapter
As a leading provider of revenue and payment cycle management solutions, Emdeon is excited to provide thought leadership speakers for your local chapter! We have visited many chapters so far this year for speaking sessions on topics such as Patient Responsibility Estimation Tips and Tricks, Denial Management Best Practices, Patient Billing & Payment Best Practices and more. We’re ready to visit your chapter!
To see our full topic list, available speakers and arrange an Emdeon speaker for your local chapter visit us online today!
