Online Payment Solution Now Updated with More Patient-Friendly Features
It’s not every day that a ten-year old gets a makeover. Yet that’s just what has happened with Emdeon Patient Pay Online. This web-based payment portal, which was launched several years ago, is designed to help providers collect more, faster by automating payment acceptance. From day one, we’ve aimed to offer the most modern, intuitive interface for this increasingly popular tool, and these recent improvements are designed to help providers stay at the forefront of online patient payment technology.
At first glance, you’ll notice that the Graphical User Interface (GUI) has been polished. We’ve streamlined the overall layout to be in line with current trends in web design. Additionally, patient-friendly standards are foundational to the design and terminology throughout. The basic look and navigation is clean, uncluttered and logical and can be enhanced by your organization’s branding to effectively blend into the total online experience you offer your patients.
However, the updates are much more than screen deep. We’ve enhanced key functionality and added subtle yet transformative touches to take Emdeon Patient Pay Online to the next level.
• Simplicity: We used market knowledge to enhance portal functionality. Every button provides the most familiar, commonly anticipated outcome when selected in keeping with user expectations. All elements are kept simple, clean and intuitive to minimize user hesitation.
• Immediacy: We made the “Pay Now” option clear and clickable. By making this option prominent, we invite users to take action, and in return, they have immediate gratification in the payment process. There’s no barrier to invite payment action, and that’s good for everyone.
• Flexibility: We built the payment interface to allow providers to customize it with their organization’s logo and color preferences. Now you can integrate a range of flexible payment options to enhance the experience for patients, including prompts for discounts and the ability to offer payment plans. Likewise, patients now have the ability to create ‘My Wallet,’ a simple, versatile solution which allows patients to save their checking and credit card information within the system to expedite future payments.
Emdeon Patient Pay Online ‘My Wallet’
• Electronic Delivery: We’ve deepened our electronic statement delivery messaging and solutions to guide your patients in the transition to paperless billing, including the use of a yellow pop-up that invites users to select paperless statements. By offering electronic statement access, we’re lowering the barrier to full adoption of electronic statements and taking a bigger cut out of your paper costs in the process.
• Security: Emdeon Patient Pay Online hits all the right notes in terms of security. The portal is backed by VeriSign, a subtle and constant assurance of payment safety that is familiar to and trusted by patients. When entering the site, authentication is also required, ensuring appropriate access to account data. These touches give site users peace of mind that security is as tight as expected.
• Mobility: The site is configured to detect if it is being viewed by a mobile device. In those instances, a mobile version is automatically loaded, making it extremely simple to use on smart phones or tablet devices.
Ready for the big reveal of the web solution makeover? The updated version of Emdeon Patient Pay Online is available now*. Call 877.EMDEON.6 (877.366.3666) to discover more.
* The updated version of Emdeon Patient Pay Online is slated for general release on, or before, October 2012.
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Patient Pay Online Gets an (Inter)face Lift
Centers of Attention
Attention to Detail Keeps Emdeon Data Centers Running and Your Transactions Going 24x7x365
Recently, there was an intense lightning storm in Nashville, the city that’s home to Emdeon and one of its state-of-the-art data centers. The wild weather took down trees, sparked fires and flash floods and left parts of the area temporarily in the dark. Yet your data and essential administrative transactions were never in harm’s way—not even for a moment. With careful building design and construction, methodical interior layout, multilayered security and massive yet intricate operational systems, Emdeon’s data centers helped to ensure that our services and solutions continued to run smoothly.
Emdeon invested over $27 million in 2011 to build a new data center in Nashville which is just one of two highly secure locations meticulously built with redundant infrastructure and network architecture designed to provide 24/7 uptime, 365 days a year.
The second data center, located 200 miles away in Memphis, is connected to the Nashville facility by two ten gigabit pipelines. Not only does each data center serve as seamless, airtight back-up for the other for most applications, each facility has layer upon layer of redundant architecture within itself. There’s literally failsafe measure upon failsafe measure in place in both locations to safeguard data and avert system outages.
So how exactly do they work? The Emdeon data centers mirror each other and function like the brains and nervous system of the company. Both locations house state-of-the-art command centers that are staffed at all times around the clock and even on holidays to monitor and rapidly respond to even the slightest hint of a service disruption.
Command Center
Millions of dollars worth of servers (2,700 total servers with much room for growth) handle literally billions of transactions each year and are protected by some of the most impressively configured temperature controls, fire suppression systems and uninterrupted power supplies.
Larry Graubner, Emdeon Vice President of Information Technology
Here are specific highlights of just how far we’ve gone to help you carry out the business of healthcare.
• Security: Security is provided 24x7x365 by a separate group that reports independently to the Chief Information Officer (CIO). All activities throughout the facilities are recorded by video surveillance. Exterior and interior doors are secured with dual mode access requiring card swipe and biometric fingerprint reading for entry.
• Power: Data centers operate with state-of-the-art electrical systems backed by uninterruptible power supplies and turbo-charged diesel generators. The systems have N+1 redundancy (a form of resilience that ensures system availability in the event of component failure), and all power sources receive testing and maintenance to ensure they’re always on the ready. Emdeon has prioritized diesel fuel resupply priority status, second only to hospitals and life support systems, in Nashville.
• Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC): Cooling towers maintain constant temperatures at the data centers using continuously recycled liquid coolant. Dual towers and 6,000-gallon reserve water tanks provide additional redundancy. Each location has nearly 400 tons of HVAC with backup pumps on standby if needed, while 200 temperature sensors work constantly to monitor the air and trigger alerts if needed.
• Hardware: Server pods (logically arranged groups of cabinets housing servers) have redundant network and Storage Area Network (SAN) fiber connections. Switches and routers are configured with redundancy for constant uptime and the data centers are designed to accommodate additional capacity at any time.
• Virtual Servers: Emdeon can also rapidly deploy new virtual servers to meet various business needs quickly and efficiently. A virtual server consumes a portion of a large “host” server. First a large host server is configured and installed. But unlike physical servers which have to go through the same order, unpack, configure and install cycle each time an additional server is required, the host server with unused capacity can be allocated on the fly to rapidly create several virtual servers which can be deployed in a matter of minutes, not weeks.
Network Switch
With every layer of security, safeguarding and monitoring, we prove that you and your business have our utmost attention. We’ve made phenomenal investments to ensure each and every one of the six billion transactions we process annually is handled with the care it deserves. The needs of your organization are at the heart of everything we do.
To learn more about the Emdeon data centers and our commitment to innovation, visit us online.
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Introducing Emdeon Patient Pay Online - The Mobile Version
Now Patients Have the Ability to Pay in the Palms of Their Hands
Emdeon Patient Pay Online is now optimized for use on mobile devices. The newly launched version of our popular, web-based payment portal offers mobile detection. If a user accesses the site from a smart phone or tablet computer, the mobile version appears automatically for easier navigation and use. When accessed from a personal computer (desktop or laptop), the standard view, also recently updated, loads.
Patient Pay Online Mobile
This important, new incarnation of Emdeon Patient Pay Online is truly consumer-driven. Today’s patient-consumers own smart phones (smart phones account for half of all U.S. mobile phones today, and that percentage continues to grow steadily1), and, increasingly, they are using them to make payments and purchases. Mobile bill payment adoption among online consumers went up 33% from 2011 to 2012, as more than 8 million web-savvy consumers opted to pay by mobile for the time-saving convenience and flexibility, among other reasons.2 Of tablet computer owners who’ve visited billers’ sites on their devices, 61% have done so to pay bills.3
In tune with patient preferences and behavior, we invested in site optimization for mobile rather than developing a stand-alone mobile application. Recent reports show that more consumers access biller sites and payment portals via mobile web browser than by mobile app. By optimizing the main site, we provide everything patients need to pay online while on the go, without requiring them to download anything in the process. Because all smartphones have native web browsers, patients can just login online and go.
With this mobile-ready site, we’re empowering you to provide the billing and payment options your patients are already accustomed to receiving and using from other industries. The site provides on-the-go access to account information and statements, helping to keep patients actively engaged, informed and motivated to make payments. And, this may inspire your patients to go paperless. Nearly half of respondents in a recent survey stated that they would be more likely to stop receiving paper statements because of the ability to access a biller’s site on their tablet computers.4 The same study revealed that 44% of customers felt electronic billing improved their relationship with the organization.5
We’ve built this version of Emdeon Patient Pay Online with even more stringent security layers, as well as adherence to patient-friendly billing principles. Both the standard and mobile versions are created to effectively engage and communicate with patients as consumers first and foremost, using language, layout and design that guides interaction with information. The goal is always to motivate response in the form of payment while reducing the patients’ need to contact customer service for more information. We’ve created the mobile site to work as smoothly and seamlessly as the smart phones and tablets upon which it is accessed.
Ready to discover how Emdeon Patient Pay Online can help expedite your patient receivables cash flow by automating payment acceptance? Call 877.EMDEON.6 (877.366.3666)to discover more.**
1Neilsen Report 3/12
2-4Fiserv Inc., Billing Household Survey 2012
5Response specific to banks, Fiserv Inc., Billing Household Survey 2012
**The mobile version of Emdeon Patient Pay Online is slated for general release on, or before, October 2012.
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Three Emdeon Revenue Cycle Management Solutions Achieve HFMA Peer Reviewed Designation
Three Emdeon revenue cycle management solutions have earned the Peer Reviewed designation of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA). The HFMA Peer Reviewed designation places these Emdeon solutions on a short list of prestigious products and services that have been proven effective by industry expert volunteers, product customers and independent HFMA staff.
Emdeon Assistant, an automated patient eligibility and benefits verification tool, was awarded the designation for the fifth year in a row. And for the third straight year, both Emdeon Claim Master®, a web-based claims management solution, and Emdeon Payment Integrity Services, which provides accounts receivable audit and recovery services for healthcare providers, were selected for Peer Reviewed status. All products presented for the certification must meet predetermined standards as established by HFMA in areas such as product effectiveness, quality, overall value and customer support to earn the "Peer Reviewed by HFMA" designation.
"By helping providers better manage the complexities of the revenue and payment cycle, Emdeon's solutions allow our customers to be more efficient from the initial patient encounter through third-party reimbursement and final payment," said George Lazenby, Chief Executive Officer for Emdeon. "We are pleased to receive corroboration from our customers and peers that Emdeon's solutions are effectively addressing healthcare market needs."
As the leading provider of intelligent revenue cycle solutions that combine advanced technology with highly trained professionals, Emdeon can help you maximize revenue and profitability. Call 877.EMDEON.6 (877.366.3666) to discover more.
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HFMA Webinar Podcast Available
Originally Broadcast August 8, 2012
Webinar Title: Patient Statements: Telling a Story to Collect More in Less Time
Speakers
Marie B. Tomé
Revenue Systems Management
Ochsner Health System
Trish Darcy
Product Manager, Patient Billing & Payment Solutions
Emdeon
Summary
If anyone attempted to recount a story to you but forgot some of the most important details, mixed-up the sequence of events, or rushed too quickly to the end, you likely left scratching your head wondering exactly what happened.
In health care, patient statements should also be considered a storytelling medium with an introduction (information about the care that was provided), the plot (insurance claims that were submitted), and the finale (the total amount due). Similar to a story, patient statements must follow a logical order and use detail to guide and educate the reader. Patients confused about their financial responsibilities are more likely to pick up the phone to call your billing department instead of picking up their pen to write a check for payment.
Ochsner Health System shares strategies that providers can use to design clear and concise PATIENT FRIENDLY BILLING® statements to drive more timely and accurate patient payments.
Watch Now!
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Get Awesomely Fast Payments from Many. Simple Enrollment with One.
Your CFO will be overjoyed!**
Give us a few minutes and we can help you get paid TWO (even THREE) times as fast with Emdeon ePayment! Yep. No joke. What’s Emdeon ePayment, you ask?
Goodbye, checks. Hello, EFT!
With Emdeon ePayment, your organization can get claims payments directly deposited into your bank account instead of paper checks in the mail. Switching to Emdeon ePayment helps you get paid. Faster.
The price? Zero.
Yup. There’s no cost to your organization for enrolling.
Payments from many. Enrollment with one.
Enrolling directly with each and every payer can be a paperwork nightmare. That's why Emdeon makes it easy. Just enroll ONCE, and get awesomely fast payments from 73 Emdeon ePayment participating payers. With your enrollment, you can also elect to receive electronic claims payments from Aetna® too*.
Reconciliation made simple!
Your enrollment automatically gives you FREE access to Emdeon Payment Manager, an online solution that helps you search, view, print and download electronic remittance advice (ERA) from payers across the country.
Want to learn more? You can get to know more about Emdeon ePayment online. Or give us a ring @ 866.506.2830. Let us help you expedite your revenue cycle. It’s good stuff.
*Aetna® is offering to distribute EFT payments directly to you and not through Emdeon. If you enroll with Aetna® that payer will pay you directly and Emdeon shall not be involved in any of their payment transactions. As such, Emdeon makes no representations or warranties regarding the payment services provided by Aetna.
**Tears of joy not guaranteed.
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