The healthcare insurance industry’s embrace of High-Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) means an increasing number of patients are responsible for paying for most medical services before plan benefits fully kick in. Your medical practice should consider recurring billing to lessen the upfront financial burden on patients.
With automated recurring billing, you can effectively collect patient payments, expand your practice’s services and streamline front-office work. Read on as we delve into the benefits of recurring billing.
Keep Up With Patient Expectations
A 2018 survey by Instamed revealed two many interesting consumer payment insights, including 1) the growing desire for digital payment options, 2) the preference to receive medical bills via digital communications.
How do those findings tie into recurring billing? Recurring billing is a no-brainer when considering HDHPs in conjunction with these trends.
Recurring billing is a digital payment option at its core. It’s a convenient “set it and forget” option. Patients' credit card or bank account information is securely stored on file and payment schedules can be customized so you get paid on time, every time. As a bonus, patients can receive digital receipts for each payment, making medical record-keeping easier..
You can collect patient payments effectively while meeting their expectations. It’s a win-win situation.
Avoid Delaying Medical Treatment
High-priced procedures may be medically necessary, but can be delayed due to the inability of the patient to cover the full amount up front. The last thing a doctor wants to do is put someone in a position to delay a much-needed surgery or elective treatment because they cannot afford to pay for it all at once.
Allowing your patients to pay for their services on an agreed-upon schedule improves the health of your patients and deepens doctor-patient relationships. Offering flexibility builds rapport and loyalty.
Offer Wellness and Rx-Based Services
Sticking to paper-based processes and outdated technology limits your practice’s ability to expand services, payments included. With the shift to HDHPs, boutique-style medical treatments are becoming more popular, and patients are expecting more options when it comes to regular visits and treatment regiments.
An easy way to enable this is with recurring billing. Whether you’re a chiropractor seeing patients on two to four week cycles, an internal physician offering a concierge medical model, or a plastic surgery center with frequent out-of-pocket payments, you can integrate recurring amenities like wellness and Rx-based services into your medical office and lean on recurring billing to streamline it.
Eliminate the Manual Work
A nice benefit of recurring billing collecting payments is streamlined even as your practice expands services or adds new locations.
Take the concierge medical office we mentioned above. This business model requires patients to be billed regularly. Without recurring billing, this would result in loads of paperwork and manual work for your front-office team. Instead, with recurring, you simply obtain payment information upfront, run one authorization once and automatically collect future payments.
Become an expert at recurring billing with these four steps.
Are you considering offering amenities such as wellness services at your practice? We’d love to hear how your business is expanding below!
