Price transparency is about making consumers more prepared, involved, and knowledgeable about the price estimates for the selected products. However, healthcare services are not like other goods. Healthcare is more personal, baffling, and expensive than other products or services. Moreover, the decisions involved in healthcare have lifelong consequences. Moreover, more than half of US consumers, 50% of whom are college-educated, don’t understand the healthcare system well enough to navigate their healthcare benefits and service utilization.
Add that to the fact that more than 70% of patients claim to be dissatisfied with the cost of healthcare. To shed some light on care costs, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are working to improve healthcare price transparency in the US. Let’s get into the benefits of price transparency in healthcare.
Patient Satisfaction
According to the HCAHPS survey, negative patient experiences translate to reduced patient satisfaction scores, ultimately impacting healthcare reimbursement. Patients’ bad experiences also can lead to intricate understanding or avoid paying their bills. A significant part of patient experience is understanding and managing costs. In that case, when the patient understands their cost prior, they getting service will create satisfaction while leaving the healthcare.
Customized Patient Experience
It’s really a grand gesture when you break down expenses for the service or treatment even with a closer look at individual elements of the treatment for the patient. The more you break or reveal, the more customized the process can become for the consumers. This lets your client prepare their out-of-pocket (if financially they are not ready for the treatment) expenses before their treatment and benefits healthcare receive payments promptly.
Enhance Health Literacy
Presenting patients with the complete cost of care not only helps them to understand what they’ll be going to pay but also helps healthcare to improve literacy. Along with the price picture, taking time to explain the associated procedures will avoid future confusion and help your clients make the most informed and aware decisions for their health and life.
Improved Rate of Collection
It’s not surprising that a customer is willing to pay more for a product or experience meeting their expectations. With the constant changes in healthcare, including copays and high deductibles, patient payments represent an increasing percentage of healthcare’s total revenue. Presenting costs before the care to patients can enhance patient experience and improve the collection rate of healthcare.
Price Transparency as Cost Lowering Tool
Still, understanding the cost of healthcare can be confusing for people and consumers. Because the price for the service varies based on where the service or treatment is provided, what kind of insurance plan the patient has and other factors. Therefore, it’s the major block for consumers to determine service and procedure prices. To eliminate the inability price structure in healthcare, many people call for great price transparency in healthcare to decide on their out-of-pocket expenses before receiving care.
Experts have long agreed that price transparency in healthcare holds a positive consequence, and it’s an important gathering tool for patients who want to compare prices to keep more informed about their healthcare decision. Moreover, according to the Public Agenda, the people in the US want great price transparency to compare healthcare prices if given the option. Apart from the educational purpose that price transparency serves, it lowers the cost of healthcare. Both price transparency and reference pricing helped reduce the costs in the long run.
However, on the other hand, according to the report, the average premium in America has increased by 63% in the past ten years. As the premium escalates, the family needs to be more educated about healthcare purchasing decisions to save expenses, especially those with high deductibles. The Healthcare Financial Management Association cites a report suggesting that per dozens of healthcare providers, the average estimate of knee replacement ranges from $33,000 to $101,000. This wide range of estimation is difficult to account for. Without a clearer picture of price transparency, consumers will have difficulty choosing a cost-efficient option.
Price Transparency for Physicians
While we look at the price transparency factor from healthcare and physicians’ perspective, 58 per cent of healthcare centers said it created more confusion in a 2019 survey. Although current stats and reports exhibit that US healthcare pricing is more complex, multilayered with several variables such as physicians’ specific charges, negotiation contracts with insurance companies, individual patients’ health plans and deductibles. In fact, healthcare providers are often not aware of how much the test or procedure costs when making medical decisions. Still, it’s kind of a dilemma for healthcare and consumers when discussing the need for price transparency in healthcare. People compared healthcare price transparency with other businesses.
Changing fundamentals to shed light on price transparency is a long way process for healthcare to take price transparency steps to implement on their own to empower patients to be more informed. Though, traditional models don’t apply when people’s lives and well-being are at stake. Here we suggest some efficient steps to maintain a positive patient experience as well as a way to build transparent pricing for your healthcare facility.
The Technical Solution to Outright Clear Patient Communication
If you want to outright transparency in healthcare, you have got to be clear about what your quote covers and what’s not and clear about why your price differs from your quote, as well as when they can afford patient pay and how. Modern consumers know well how to shop. Gone are the days when bargain hunters trudged from store to store, looking for the best deal. Now a quick online search finds various deals and offers sorted by quality. It’s a seamless process that takes time on their preferred devices, leading consumers to expect more from the healthcare providers.
To fulfil patient experience as well as healthcare requirements, we, MHRCM, offer a practice management tool to provide pricing estimation in real-time for all kinds of procedures for your in-house team. With our tool, you can stay ahead of the billing transparency curve and support your in-house staff in discussing billing with patients.
Conclusion
Additionally, MHRCM offers seamless assistance for your healthcare by managing administrative and financial processes with end-to-end revenue cycle management solutions along with high-efficiency billing and coding services to reach your financial goals. Contact our team for the best solutions at the best price.