The journey to patient financial engagement: Lessons learned

As health-care consumers face increasing responsibility for medical care costs, health systems have launched innovative programmes to help patients successfully engage in the financial process from pre-service to final billing. Both national and regional organisations are employing automation, optimised workflows and dedicated patient teams to improve transparency and communicate more personally with patients as they make important financial decisions. This article explores how to leverage processes, technology and automation to give patients the full financial picture, access to affordability tools and the ability to self-serve. A host of important steps were used to measure patient preferences with the desired outcome of enabling patients to make self-service payments. Other target outcomes included moving a significant proportion of patients onto self-service payment plans, with the goal of reducing accounts receivable (A/R) days and collection costs while improving patient satisfaction. Also envisioned were digital patient engagement tools that would allow patients to view their entire financial picture, understand costs, self-enrol in payment plans and access critical information, providing convenience and ease of access and making it easier for patients to financially engage while improving the overall patient experience.