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These days, patients are spending more on healthcare than ever before. Their out-of-pocket spending hit $491.6 billion in 2021. That’s up almost 10% from the previous year and is on track to reach $800 billion by 2026. Today, patients prefer convenient payment options to stay on top of medical bills. So if you don’t automate healthcare payments, you may want to look into it.
Manually collecting payments is time-consuming and increases the risk of uncollected payments. Patient payments that aren’t integrated or automated can create a lot of manual work for your staff. Fortunately, there are ways to automate healthcare payments to make life easier for your patients and practice.
Mend Can Help
Here’s Why Your Practice Should Automate Medical Billing
There are several reasons why switching from paper to automated patient billing is important. Everyone is attempting to do their part to help the environment. And when you automate healthcare billing, your practice is doing your part.
But the benefits of automated patient billing go beyond reducing your carbon footprint. When you automate healthcare payments, you increase patient satisfaction. And your practice benefits in multiple ways.
1. Save Space
No more endless rows of file cabinets and piles upon piles of patient paperwork. Of course, you still need to store patient billing information somewhere. But with today’s space-saving cloud technology, that storage space is invisible.
2. Reduce Costs
You may think choosing to automate healthcare payments increases your practice’s costs. In reality, the opposite is true.
You don’t have to designate an employee to keep tabs on all the paperwork. There’s nobody manually taking and tracking payments, following up after an appointment, and taking note of overdue payments. You should have someone available to talk to a patient, you don’t need to hire people to do that job.
Not to mention, it’s time-consuming to have a staff member chase down unpaid copays and medical bills. When you have to sell uncollected payments to debt collectors for pennies on the dollar, that’s a lot of wasted money and increased patient aggravation.
3. Increase Patient Privacy
A 2018 study revealed that 65% of medical data breaches occurred using paper or film-based patient records. Yet, 75% of providers continue to use paper and manual billing processes.
Data breaches are far less likely when you use a client portal, text, or email. Patients often cite privacy as one of their biggest concerns. So switching to automated patient billing provides more security and better overall service to your patients.
4. Motivate On-Time Payments
Getting a medical bill in the mail isn’t the most efficient way of ensuring your patients pay on time. They could throw the bill in a pile of mail and accidentally forget about it.
When you automate healthcare payments, you can tailor payment reminders to each patient’s individual needs. And when there is an easy-to-use medical payment option at their fingertips, they’re less likely to forget about paying.
5. Improve Transparency
When you don’t automate patient billing, your patients may get multiple bills in the mail. And many times, all of the relevant payment information isn’t included in the same envelope. This can lead to patients resenting your practice, assuming you’re not providing all of the information they need.
Automated healthcare billing does away with all of that. When your patients receive a payment reminder, they’ll be able to see all relevant information in one place.
How to Automate Healthcare Payments
Your practice can utilize automated patient payments before and after each in-person or virtual visit. But to do this, you need a comprehensive, reliable, and easy-to-use software platform like Mend.
Our innovative healthcare management system lets you automate patient billing when integrated into your PMS or EHR. Your patients get a digital check-in experience whether they are visiting in-person or virtually. They can conveniently store their credit card information for automatic charges or upon receipt of an invoice.
But the benefits don’t end there.
When you automate healthcare payments with Mend, you’ll see your practice’s efficiency and bottom line increase.
Mend’s automated payment feature delivers further benefits, including:
- Receive copays before the visit
Once your patients digitally check-in with Mend, they’ll be able to pay their copay right away. They can use the card on file or use a different card.
They will also be able to fill out any necessary digital forms before their visit. This saves you and your patient time, money, and aggravation.
- Provide instant patient billing post-adjudication
When you integrate Mend into your practice’s computer system, it can automatically bill patients’ credit cards via adjudication. Or, if there is no credit card on file, it will send an invoice via text and email.
When patients have this reminder to pay at their fingertips, payments are collected quickly. And, they are automatically documented in your practice’s management system.
- Acquire post-visit payments quickly
After your patient’s visit, there are two options to receive healthcare payments. Mend can automatically bill their credit card on file, so they don’t need to worry about paying it.
Or Mend can send them a digital form invoice. They receive a secure link via text and email and authenticate using only their date of birth. From there, they proceed to pay their bill using a card stored on file or by entering a new payment method that will be stored securely for future payments.
- Supply a straightforward, modern experience for patients
Your patients want a modern and convenient patient engagement experience in today’s technology-driven world. To stay competitive, you need to provide them with an effortless automated healthcare payment option.
With Mend, you’ll get that. And more.
Mend is Your Turnkey Automated Healthcare Payment Solution
Our innovative healthcare management system is the best way to automate healthcare payments. Mend seamlessly integrates into your practice’s already existing EHR and PMS software. That means you can improve productivity, reduce costs, and increase patient satisfaction simply by using Mend.
But that’s not all.
Mend can give you the competitive edge you need in today’s technologically-advanced healthcare market. Our unique system includes other valuable features to streamline the way your practice does business.
These features include:
- Digital intake forms – No more annoying paperwork! Your patients can complete necessary intake forms on any device via text, email, or the web.
- Patient appointment reminders – Mend automatically reminds patients of upcoming appointments. Using our advanced AI, you’ll eliminate costly no-shows.
- Patient scheduling – Make it easy for your patients to schedule, cancel, and reschedule their appointments any time, day or night.
- HIPAA compliant telemedicine – Our telemedicine capabilities allow you to expand your reach using telemedicine.
- Telepsychiatry software – If you are in the mental health field, our telepsychiatry software can help you reduce no-show rates. They can go from 30-40% to single digits.
- Group video & scheduling – Using our HIPAA compliant video conferencing and group scheduling features, you make group sessions easy.
- Virtual waiting room experience – Mend’s one-of-a-kind virtual waiting room experience is tailored to your patients and practice. No more wasted time staring at a blank screen. Our VWR allows your patients to watch important videos and updates regarding your practice.
There’s no other healthcare management system on the market like Mend. Our advanced technology is the best way to automate healthcare payments and keep you ahead of the curve. Contact us to schedule your free demonstration to learn more about how Mend can help your practice.