Benefits of effective patient collections in healthcare

Increase collection rates with better financial guidance

Patients and providers are at risk of rising out-of-pocket medical expenses. With the right information, your patients can have the confidence they need to make informed decisions, and you can implement informed collection strategies with internal and external resources that work for all parties.

Maximize in-house and external cash collections and recovery rates

Decrease healthcare collections costs

Improve patient satisfaction by accurately screening accounts

Empower your staff by reducing manual repetitive work

Connect with a healthcare collections expert

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  • Screen, segment, route, and reconcile accounts for payment
  • Prioritize accounts by payment probability to maximize efforts
  • Performance management for internal and external collections teams

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Recent client success story

On-demand webinar

Learn how WCH transformed patient collections by focusing on what truly matters: understanding patients' ability and willingness to pay, and implementing an effective outreach plan.

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Our healthcare collections solutions

Collections Optimization Manager

Segment and prioritize collections accounts to improve staff efficiency and patient financial experiences.

Patient Financial Clearance

Determine which patients are likely to pay, and connect those who potentially qualify for financial assistance with the right programs.

Patient Outreach Solutions

Use automated dialing and texting outreach to collect outstanding patient balances.

Coverage Discovery®

Find previously unidentified coverage and maximize your insurance reimbursement revenue.

Client testimonials

Collections Optimization Manager helps Stanford Health Care reduce their cost to collect through managing vendor performance efficiently, automating assignment to bad debt and identifying uncollectable accounts in their AR.

Learn how UC San Diego Health uses automation to optimize patient collections and improve the patient experience. Experian Health provides important bandwidth for internal teams to work more complicated cases that need human interaction. 

Frequently asked questions (FAQ) about healthcare collections

Experian optimizes patient collections through a multi prong approach that consists of best in industry data insights and consulting services that put this data into actionable strategies. Experian taps into the immense amount of consumer data which is then modeled via modern day machine learning to provide analytical insights that can easily tell which accounts should be prioritized and contacted, which have the highest likelihood to pay, and which accounts are uncollectable. In addition, Experian provides reporting capabilities that focus driving performance of external self-pay vendors. In order to maximize self-pay collections in healthcare, each account has to be looked at and treated differently as two individuals who may live in the same area and have received similar care may in fact be very different when it comes to their financial status.

The struggle to do more with less is one very often encountered in healthcare. Having the right technology is critical to achieve optimal results. While identifying accounts that are more likely to pay is important, when dealing with limited resources or driving down the cost of collection, identifying accounts that are uncollectable is just as important. Healthcare collections management should include handling uncollectable accounts via a ‘no touch’ strategy and/or workflow automation. This allows valuable resources to focus on revenue-driving activities.

The first critical step in maximizing patient collections is understanding the financial health of each patient. Second, is to identify accounts that are uncollectable, applying touchless processing to reduce cost and resources spent with no return. Third, is to use financial insights coupled with technology and automation to apply the most efficient and cost-effective outreach strategy. Fourth is to ensure external self-pay vendors are performing at the highest standards via agnostic performance reporting. Finally, frequently monitor the results of each strategy and continue to optimize.

Imagine what it would mean for your organization's bottom line and financial wellbeing if you knew exactly who to collect from and be able to consider the financial status of each patient individually. Experian’s internal analysis has shown that health organizations who have no data driven collection strategy today are leaving a minimum of 6% patient collections on the table. Breaking this down further, depending on the size of your organization, if you are collecting $1M a month today, by not using a robust data driven collection strategy, you are losing out on an additional $60k a month or $720k a year. In addition, you are most likely sending those accounts to a collection agency. You lose out on these collections and pay an average of 15% contingency fee on top of that. Not to mention the repetitive and prolonged attempts trying to collect from the same accounts, causing staff burnout and reduced patient satisfaction.

Working your way down a list of accounts by focusing on the largest balances first or accounts with the shortest aging period is not a strategy that will yield the best results. Accounts with the highest balances may seem most appealing to contact and try to collect from, but that is not always the case. Healthcare collections software, such as Experian’s industry-leading scoring and segmentation tools, provides proven insights into identifying and grouping accounts into various tiers. These tiers are then used to create contact campaigns and outreach strategies so that efforts are focused on tiers that offer the biggest return on investment or highest yield. Experian’s segmentation separates itself from the rest of the industry as it encompasses many additional factors, such as Experian’s health risk score, which incorporates the consumer’s financial situations including credit scores, proprietary repayment history models, encounter-specific attributes, and demographic/address level details.

University of California San Diego Health increased collections to over $21 million in a year — an increase of over 250%.

Client case study

Healthcare collections management resources

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Success at a glance: improved healthcare collections

Since working with Experian Health, Sanford now has a focused approach to managing accounts receivable (AR) by identifying patients with a certain propensity to pay. 

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5 best practices from high-performing patient collections teams

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Make patient collections more compassionate

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Benefits of automating charity care eligibility

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