Creating a better payment experience: 3 Ways providers can empower patients

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Recent advances in payment platforms have enabled healthcare providers to leverage modern digital payment options, helping revenue cycle operation leaders to reduce friction in patient financial experiences.

Payment platforms that drive more positive patient financial experiences have grown increasingly important for providers, due to several recent factors, including rising labor costs and healthcare worker shortages. For example, across the nation, 623 hospitals (or 16.7% of reporting hospitals) anticipate a critical staffing shortage, according to the American Hospital Association. Specifically, there are significant projected shortages of doctors, nurses, and behavioral health specialists, driving up the costs to provider groups of all these positions.

As providers increasingly face staffing challenges that are not expected to lighten, it becomes imperative that they adopt technology solutions that can also boost the efficiency of existing staff members. In many cases, these new technologies enable patients to perform tasks and activities that previously required staff attention, such as making payments via text, online or app. In some other cases, new technology can enable staff to automate previously manual tasks, such as reconciliation and appointment scheduling.

Further, providers are being compelled to adopt flexible payment options and convenient digital tools as the consumerization of healthcare continues, with patients increasingly expecting providers to deliver a similar personalized payment experience that matches what they get from retailers.

Even when providers create a high-quality clinical experience for patients, they can lose customers if the clinical component is not followed by a positive patient financial experience.

In that spirit, here are three suggestions that healthcare providers can offer their patients to create a frictionless financial experience:

1. Offer a card-on-file option: Card-on-file transactions refer to payments when the cardholder's information is securely stored on-file to be used for future purchases. The card-on-file option is appealing to some consumers due to its convenience of relieving them from needing to enter their 16-digit credit card number, expiration date, and security code for future transactions.
2. For this option, it is important to assure patients up-front that their cards will never be charged without their consent. Patients must authorize all transactions by some means, such as clicking a button in an app or a link within an email from a provider.
3. Accept digital wallets: Digital wallets can be easily accessed on computers or smartphones and eliminate the need for consumers to carry a traditional wallet or credit or debit cards. Patients may make payments using digital wallets at in-person payment terminals, apps, and websites.
4. For both providers and patients, digital wallets offer greater convenience, ease-of-use, and efficiency than traditional methods of medical bill payment. For providers, mobile payments reduce paper, enabling cost savings and freeing staff from paperwork.
5. Provide an omnichannel experience: Retailers use the word “omnichannel” to refer to the delivery of a seamless customer experience across all interactions, whether in-person at different locations, on websites, through apps, social media, or any other means of connection. Providers can follow this lead by securely sharing patients’ information (in the form of a secure token) across all their locations and platforms, enabling patients to quickly authorize payments without having to enter detailed payment information each time across multiple encounters.

Modernized, advanced payment platforms can make the difference between a positive and negative overall patient experience. Provider groups that take advantage of platforms that cater to patient demand for convenience and flexible payment options stand to improve their patient experience while improving collections through higher patient loyalty.

Johnathan Welch is Chief Product Officer at TrustCommerce, a Sphere Company