We’ve talked about the major benefits and trends of telehealth, but one of the lesser known benefits is the improvement telehealth can bring to the billing and payment cycle for hospitals.
As patient financial responsibility for healthcare bills evolve, there has been an increase in the use of online platforms to streamline payments between patients and healthcare providers.
The portion of bills that are under the responsibility of the patient, rather than the insurance portion, are determined or released post-care. This process is not always easy, as patients are often unsure about what they owe or how to go about paying it, making it easy to put off paying these leftover bills for long periods of time.
According to Dan Berger, national director at the health financial technology company AxiaMed:
“Telehealth providers can ask for payment up front,” said Berger. “What we’re seeing is that patients, in many cases, are unsure whether insurance will cover that visit, but they’ll pay for it anyway, just for the convenience.”
Patients are willing to pay upfront, and possibly even more, just for the sake of convenience. This has the potential to be a game-changer for hospital revenue cycles.
Berger added that our reality is only becoming more and more mobile, stating, “this is fast becoming the preferred method of payment. Someday 20 years from now people will laugh at the idea that we used to mail envelopes and write checks. It will seem very quaint.”
Telehealth with Integracon
When it comes to telehealth and IT telecom services, we have experience helping many of our IT healthcare clients with remote healthcare communication services and more. For more information on how we can help you in the healthcare industry, visit Integracon.
