An oncology firm may face various challenges when it comes to ensuring accurate and timely payment transactions from their respective patients. Your company must avoid common mistakes that can occur when processing payments. As digitized payment platforms continue to evolve, e-payments can easily provide patients with many payment options to solve reimbursement roadblocks and increase patient satisfaction.
While your oncology firm may be losing out on money, it can be as simple as reassessing the payment infrastructure you have in place. This post will list several payment pay challenges and various alternative patient payment options to counter these barriers.
Not Having a Competent Phone Payment System
Many oncology firms can lose money because they have a phone payment system that relies solely on manual human effort. Therefore, a large sum of your practice’s resources will go towards payment outreach staff without guarantee of accurate reimbursement.
Also, the human help you hire will only be available during certain hours of the day, meaning that a person who has to pay by phone can only pay during your practice’s limited business hours. This might not seem like a problem, but many patients may find it difficult to pay if they’re not available during these time windows.
One solution is an interactive voice response (IVR) system for your phone payments. In short, a patient can call at any hour of the day and make a payment using a pre-recorded menu that they can then navigate through at their leisure. Not only can this allow for more payment flexibility, but it requires fewer human hours to make it happen.
IVR is an example of how you can integrate automation into your practice without replacing human effort, but acting as a support system for your front-facing staff. Of course, you can never fully automate your oncology practice’s payment infrastructure, but a hybrid system can benefit you in many ways.
IVR can reduce call volume for other general questions patients may have. Having a team answer everything, including issues that IVR could solve, could lead to a higher call volume and thus more efficient patient satisfaction.
Not to mention, IVR’s can help a patient who needs to update their payment information. With IVR, the patient can change their card or bank account on file if their current means of pay are updated. IVR can also change the payment date if needed, meaning that the patient can make the correct payments on their own time and in the convenience of their own home. Giving patients more mobility in updating payment information, setting up payment intervals, and payment amounts gives them flexibility to initiate personalized payment installments that work best with their schedule and financial situation.
Not Having a Mobile Optimized Payment Portal
Some patients do not want to make a call from their phone but instead pay through an online payment portal using their mobile device. Because of this, your practice must have some payment method that implements the usage of a mobile device. It can increase self-service payments by up to 88% if you do this right.
Mobile payment options can come in the form of a website optimized for mobile usage or through an app that can make payments even more manageable. With a downloadable app, your patients can even recieve push notifications reminding them when payments are due. Over 60% of all payments are mobile, so if you’re not providing a mobile-friendly payment method, know that there are many practice solutions that you should take advantage of.
These solutions both increase reimbursement rates for your practice and ensure that your patients have payment options to best suit their lifestyle.
Not Having Autopay
One issue many firms make to this day is not implementing autopay within their firm. Autopay method’s set up a patients’ billing account with automatic installments, meaning a patient doesn’t have to worry about having to manually submit a payment.
Many patients can lose track of time, leading to missed or delayed payments. However, once a patient signs up for autopay, they don’t have to worry about meeting payment deadlines from there on out. Not only that, but a practice can send autopay reminders so that the patient can make sure the money is in the bank before being charged or reschedule for a later date when they know they will have the payment amount. Reminders can also help the patient should their payment information change between payment installment dates.
As mentioned, IVR and mobile-optimized platforms can be an excellent way to set up an autopay system. Always make sure that your patient has several ways to set up autopay methods, as they might have a preference for the most accessible method, due date schedule, and payment amounts to best suite their financial situation.
Not Hiring A Company To Help
Quite often, an oncology firm can be busy, which leads to disregarding the importance of setting up a robust payment collection system. As a result, many turn to companies for help, as the cost to hire them is far less than the money being allocated towards manual efforts.
You might believe that implementing machine learning can be expensive or complex for your firm, yet you would be surprised by how inexpensive and straightforward it is. By seeking the help of a firm designed to assist you with payments, you can make it happen.
Infinx uses AI-driven technology and machine learning to make collecting payments more accessible, allowing your company to take advantage of emerging technology. However, no matter how foolproof you believe your firm is, there’s always room for improvement. Best of all, this technology is more affordable than you think, and we believe that all medical firms can use it. So do not hesitate to contact us or request a demo to learn more information on what Infinx can do for you. You will be surprised at what possibilities may lay ahead.
