A Different Approach to Measuring Patient Payments

As you strive to increase patient collections at the point-of-service (POS), gain patient buy-in for payment plans, and improve the productivity of your registrars, are you measuring and reporting the right factors? It’s typical to look at daily collections as the measuring stick. A different and more meaningful approach is to consider patient payment status and payment opportunities captured and missed as better indicators of the health of your POS collections processes.

Key questions include the following:

• What percentage of patient-payment opportunities are captured or missed?
• What percentage of patients have paid in full for their obligations prior to service?
• What percentage of patients have made partial payments?
• What percentage of patients have been put on a payment plan?

Monitoring Missed Patient Payment Opportunities Allows for Improvement

By measuring these indicators and viewing them in a rolling 90- to 120-day period, you’ll have a much better view of front-end collection status and trends and staff effectiveness—in addition to the total revenue collected. The challenge is developing and implementing the systems and training programs that bring visibility to these key performance indicators.

Gordon Jaye is vice president, hospital operations, PatientMatters, and a member of HFMA’s Florida Chapter.