'Point of sale' technology strengthens bottom line
Point of sale’ technology strengthens bottom line
Health care providers of all kinds lose some $60 billion a year in fee-for-service medical payments because patients cannot or will not pay the bill, estimates the Imperial Bank of California (IBC).
Additionally, IBC says a practitioner generating between $350,000 to $400,000 in revenue a year also spends $35,000 to $40,000 on administrative procedures such as verifying the insurance status of patients, preparing/mailing patient bills, and trying to collect on bills that will probably end up written off as bad debt.
"Whether they know it or not, many providers, especially independents and smaller group practices, have an accounts receivable problem," says Michael Sims, vice president of Imperial’s healthcare technology group.
Imperial’s solution is to combine standard credit card and insurance eligibility verification technology to help practitioners save a large portion of what they currently spend to process and collect patient payments.
The system is being tested on a small group of independent dental practices in the state of Washington. In the pilot, each participating office is able to directly access a patient’s coverage parameters, including any insurance copayments or deductibles, by entering social security number into a special "point-of-sale" computer terminal.
Once the patient’s eligibility and payment information is on-screen, he or she can chose to pay by cash, check, credit card, or debit card.
Patients who need to finance their bill can also choose Visa or MasterCard programs that automatically charge a portion of their bill to the credit card each month.
"Instead of having to incur the cost of sending out a paper bill each month and waiting for payment, the office is automatically paid by the credit card company," notes Sims.
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