Digital Payments Easing Pains For Hurting Medical And Dental Practices
In a time of mass illness and economic contraction, are doctors and hospitals feeling OK about payments? We hope so — but it takes more than hope to run a medical practice. It takes money, and for the medical profession, money has been a strangely tenuous thing this year.
Demystifying the matter is PYMNTS December 2020 Digitizing B2B Payments Tracker® done in collaboration with Deluxe, examining the hurdles now set out before healthcare providers.
As Chris Clausen, executive director of product management at Deluxe, recently told PYMNTS, “Medical claims payments are one of the most intricate and challenging types of B2B payments in the marketplace. There is a fundamental need to link complex remittance data — explanation of payment — with the payments being made.”
“When completed correctly, this allows the healthcare provider to accurately reconcile the payment and settle the claim. When the remittance data and the payment become disconnected, it becomes a significant friction point for the healthcare providers, which then requires extra expense on their end and increases the provider’s [days sales outstanding], negatively hurting the healthcare provider’s cash flow,” Clausen said.
That’s the point in the journey where digital payments — even digital checks — are able to free up cash flow for the medical and dental practices suffering COVID’s economic side effects.
Treating A Payments Toothache
Packed with use cases, the Digitizing B2B Payments Tracker® gives dentistry a special going-over, observing, “Dental practices go through many steps to receive payments, and the time and costs involved can quickly mount when many of these processes are handled manually. Care providers charge patients bill portions and then submit claims and supporting documentation to insurance providers for the remaining amounts. They must then wait for those claims to be approved and funds to be paid out.” It’s far from ideal.
Aspen Dental Management Vice President of Insurance Operations and Revenue Cycle Management Arthur Schoen told PYMNTS, “[In] the new world of maximizing social distancing and working from home, there has been a realization that all of this paper may not be necessary. Some payers had to limit the operations of their mailrooms. Likewise, providers were looking to minimize staff in their offices and speed [up] reimbursement.”
Schoen expects more insurers to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into billing solutions for rapid processing of important claims documentation. “Dental practitioners facing new hurdles during the pandemic may find it more important than ever before to ensure they can receive their payments quickly and easily, and insurance carriers in the space may similarly crave ways to reduce their own workloads and better support the providers with which they work,” per the Tracker. “The dental sector ultimately stands to benefit from implementing swift, digital processes rather than friction-filled, paper-based ones.”
Curing What Ails Healthcare Payments
Digital transformation by any name is, of course, the underlying issue. Medical and dental providers arguably face higher regulatory barriers than any business, and given that fact, the sector is a target for modernization. Certain payments products are proving useful at it.
The Tracker notes that, “Virtual cards help healthcare providers get paid more quickly — albeit at the cost of interchange fees — and offer improved visibility into payments' statuses. These tools can also provide enhanced security compared to paper checks and other forms of payment as claims processors and insurance companies can transmit single-use payment details to providers rather than request sensitive bank account details.”
Virtual cards are just one of the payments innovations helping to cure what ails healthcare payments at a time when a healthy base of providers and facilities has never meant more.