1. PAF reviewed my meditations and what co-pay assistance is available to defray my cost. They show local, state, and county benefits, such as fuel assistance, utilities shut-off protection, transitional assistance with food, medical bills, etc. PAF is a direct patient.
2. Perform the following steps for each Patient Copay at the time of payment: From the Accounts menu on the left, click on Patients. Search for and select the desired Patient from the database. The Patient form will open, at the top of which is a toolbar, as.

Required Information to Complete an Application for Assistance:

Patient Demographic Information

A fixed amount ($20, for example) you pay for a covered health care service after you've paid your deductible. Let's say your health insurance plan's allowable cost for a doctor's office visit is $100. Your copayment for a doctor visit is $20. If you've paid your deductible: You pay.

• First & Last Name
• Address & Phone Number
• Gender, Ethnicity & Marital Status
• Veteran Status, Employment Status, Date of Birth
• Social Security Number or Alien Number
• Financial Information
• Number in Household

Annual Household Income

• Do you file a Tax Return for the most current year?
• Has your Annual Income changed significantly from last year?

Authorized Person

• Is anyone else authorized to speak with CPR on the Patient’s behalf?
• If yes, the following fields are required: First Name, Last Name, Relationship, Special Authorization, Phone
  Number

Insurance Information

• Primary Insurance Carrier Insurance & Plan Type Policy ID & Group Number Telephone Number
• Subscriber’s Name and Date of Birth
• Co-Pay or Coinsurance for medical services
• Co-Pay or Coinsurance for pharmacy benefits
• Do you have Medicare Part D?
• Does the patient have a Medicare Supplement? Do you have Secondary Insurance?
• Is Insurance coverage continuation under COBRA in effect?
• Does this plan cover prescription drugs at the pharmacy and provider office?

Treating Physician Information

• Physician Name Facility Name Physical Address
• Phone and Fax Number
• Office Contact Name and Email Address, if known

Medical Diagnosis

• Primary Diagnosis
• Date of Diagnosis

Treatment Plan

• Confirmation you have a treatment plan and are currently in treatment, have been in treatment in the last 6 months or will begin treatment in the next 60 days.

Benefits of Payment Plans:

According to a recent Bankrate survey, 61% of Americans are unable to pay an unexpected $1,000 bill without borrowing money or selling possessions. As the average medical deductible is nearly twice that amount, healthcare organizations must rely increasingly on patient payments. Unfortunately, the math doesn’t work. How can providers avoid bad debt if many patients can’t afford to pay?

Revenue cycle leaders often assume that patients will be less likely to pay-in-full (PIF) if they offer flexible payment options. They worry net patient revenue will also slow by extension.

Their concern is understandable; after all, why would patients pay the full amount if they don’t have to? It turns out, this assumption is unfounded. After rigorous testing, Patientco’s data science team discovered that giving patients the option to pay over time via smart payment prompts accelerates patient payments. Furthermore, we found that offering payment plans boosts patient satisfaction and may slightly increase PIF.

Experiments Lead to Informed Decision Making:

Patientco’s team hypothesized that, with a thoughtfully designed interface, offering payment plans would enhance the patient financial experience without impacting PIF. To confirm this theory, we used PatientWallet® (our online payment portal) to conduct A/B tests.

We compared two randomized groups of patients. Upon logging in to PatientWallet®, patients in Group A and Group B were given the choice to “Pay Account Balance” or “Pay Another Amount.” If “Pay Another Amount” was selected, patients in Group A could make a partial payment. However, for Group B, our engineers designed a smart workflow that offered a self-service payment plan tailored to our client’s business rules (i.e. minimum monthly payment, maximum time period).

Patient Pay Services

The Results:

After measuring 800 unique online payments over 90 days at one healthcare organization, our team found that giving patients a more flexible financial experience decreased our client’s average days to pay (ADTP) by 12.8% (almost three full days). Additionally, their patient satisfaction score increased from 94.9% to 96.3%. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that PIF rates remain stable, regardless of whether patients are presented with other payment options. To our surprise, this client’s PIF also marginally improved (~1%) after they introduced self-service payment plans.

In a follow-up experiment, we replicated these results with a larger patient population. This experiment generated roughly $4 million of committed patient payments for multiple health systems without impacting their PIF or reducing payment velocity. Without flexible self-service payment methods, this health system may not have captured these payments.

Given these insights, what should your organization do?

The Bottom Line:

1. Utilize payment plans.

Payment plans increase collection rates and establish patients’ commitment to pay.

2. Follow the data.

High-performing organizations routinely conduct multivariate tests to help inform decision making, improve patient engagement, and also optimize revenue cycles.

3. Tailor UX to improve outcomes.

Consumer-focused technology and payment options enhance the patient financial experience and also yield better results.

Above all, don’t let the fear of slowing payments get in the way of offering self-service payment plans. With smarter design, a carefully crafted user experience, and data to objectively measure results, your organization can accelerate patient payments, ensure future revenue capture via commitments to pay, and also enhance the patient financial experience. Furthermore, this is accomplished without negatively impacting PIF.

Patient Co Payment Meaning

More payment options equal more payments and happier patients.

Keep an eye out for our next analysis, in which we’ll examine payment plan attributes that can maximize enrollment while minimizing drop-outs.