As patients' out-of-pocket medical expenses continue to rise, so too is medical practices' adoption of card-based technologies that streamline and improve patient collections.

According to recent piece in Health Data Management, the latest services available to physicians not only verify patients' insurance eligibility and fairly accurately predict their final amount owed, but they also obtain patients' authorization to automatically charge their credit or debit cards for all expenses as soon as claims are adjudicated by insurers. In addition, many such web-based systems can link relatively easily to both small and large medical practices' existing office systems that may or may not integrate billing and medical records.

Systems such as First Pay, offered by Total System Services Inc., A-Claim from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina and Minneapolis-based mPay Gateway Inc., among others, do not come cheap, costing the medical provider about 5 percent of the total transaction amount. According to mPay CEO Brian Beutner, however, the expense is easily offset by higher collection rates and reduced billing expenses.

Christa Olive, administrator at Twin Cities Pain Clinic, says her 20-employee practice has seen its patient bill-payment rate improve "significantly," since adding mPay in 2009. The system also has cut the average time to receive payments by 44 percent, to 45 days from 80 days, she told Health Data Management, adding that the practice now mails just a few traditional bills per month.

The challenge has been the ongoing effort to explain the process to patients, particularly the pre-authorization process for future medical payments, she says. "We spend a lot of time explaining how it works to patients, especially on their first visit. And we've had to take time to train our entire staff in how to educate patients on the process," Olive says.

To learn more:
- read the article in Health Data Management

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