The Affordable Care Act has made health insurance more accessible and affordable for
many consumers, but it has also
introduced new challenges for the
collection industry.
Section 501(r), which brings many
compliance requirements for tax-exempt hospitals, has had a ripple effect
on their collection partners.
For providers and patients—and of
course, collectors operating in the
nonprofit hospital revenue cycle—the
effects of the Affordable Care Act and
501(r) are far reaching.
The Compliance Cloud Silver Lining
While hospitals struggle to comply
with 501(r) regulations, their collection
agency partners can use this
opportunity to review their processes as
well as introduce new technology.
The White House reports that
approximately 11. 4 million Americans
are now signed up for private health
coverage in response to the Affordable
Care Act. Speaking at a recent
Billing Tree webinar, Pam Kirchner,
CEO of BCA Financial Services, noted
that volumes of insurance transactions
passing through the hospital cycle will
increase by 20 percent as a result of the
act.
Previously, medical debt was often
incurred by those self-paying their
healthcare bills. Under the Affordable
Care Act, many patients previously
categorized as self-pay have become
self-pay after insurance.
“In the future, a greater percentage
of debt will come from those with
insurance coverage, as a result the
probability of collection is potentially
higher,” Kirchner said.
The ripple effect is that healthcare
providers experiencing high
volumes of transactions lack the
resources and technology to
process them at a low per-unit
cost. This presents a huge
opportunity for those operating
in medical collections who are
already equipped to offer
efficient processing services.
Lower Effort, Increased
Settlements
In today’s digital age, patients
are looking for more convenient,
less frustrating ways to pay their
bills—meaning those in
healthcare collections offering
multiple payment options have a
business edge.
Research from The Corporate
Executive Board indicates that 88
percent of consumers are more likely to
spend money when they have low-effort interactions with businesses.
Applied to the collection space, it
follows that the less effort required by
consumers to pay a bill, the more likely
they are to attempt to pay it.
There are a number of technology
options collection agencies can explore
to make the payment process easier on
consumers. For instance, automating
debt payments means patients have the
choice to pay at their convenience—no
longer enduring time-consuming
interactions with live agents.
Agencies working in healthcare
collections that offer a wider variety of
payment options save on resources and
often see an increase in settled
payments.
More traditional forms of payment,
like paper checks—a popular offering
in healthcare payments—require
manual processing, making them time
consuming. They also carry the
possibility of fraud via interception and
alteration.
Depending on their size and market,
collection agencies usually offer several
payment options. A multiple response
poll during the Billing Tree webinar
found that 49 percent of attendees
offered agent-assisted phone payments,
40 percent offered Web payments and
just 9 percent offered automatic IVR,
while 43 percent said they provided all
three.
These responses indicate that despite
increasing payment options, there is
still an industry reliance on more
traditional forms of payment, such as
agent-assisted phone. By integrating
technologies such as Web and
particularly IVR for payment
acceptance, which appears to currently
have relatively lower utilization rate
today, providers can offer 24/7
automatic customer service and
By Dave Yohe
care
A Ripple Effect
New healthcare compliance requirements present opportunities to expand technology