COLLECTING MORE FOR LESS — EXPLORING THE POWER OF PATIENT ENGAGEMENT

2

To meet the challenges of collecting greater revenue, hospitals are employing new patient

engagement techniques and payment technologies, which are proven to dramatically

increase collections, efficiency and patient satisfaction.

How can you change patient behavior? First, you must

change yourself. Most patients who do not pay in full

say they would if you offered them payment plans and

bills that are easy to understand.

1 PATIENTS SAY THEY WILL PAY MORE AND FASTER… IF YOU CHANGE

Another change patients welcome would be offering

convenient card payment options through channels

like text message payments, which will also get

patients to pay faster. This should come as no surprise,

since 98% of text messages are opened within three

minutes.1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Seven percent of patients cancel on the day of their

appointment, costing healthcare providers time and

expected revenue. Appointment reminders drastically

reduce this number and offer providers the chance to

provide consent forms, patient registration, financial

policies, pre-appointment instructions and even maps

to the provider.3

2 PATIENT ACCESS ACCELERATES REVENUE

Collecting More for Less — Exploring the Power of Patient Engagement

WHAT WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL TO GET PATIENTS TO PAY IN FULL?

WHAT WOULD MAKE DELINQUENT PATIENTS VERY LIKELY TO PAY ON TIME?

Source: Aite Group survey of patients who did not pay their medical bill in full

Source: Aite Group survey of patients who did not pay their medical bill on time

0%

Credit or debit card

Text message payments

Text or email reminders

20% 40% 60% 80% 90%

Patients also say new payment technologies can help

save hospitals money. Seventy-six percent of patients

who called their provider say that patient engagement

and payment technologies would be very helpful in

preventing them from calling.20%

Easy to understand bill

Payment plan

Negotiate amountowned online

Price estimate and link to pay

pre-appointment

20% 40% 60% 80%

3

Modern patient billing and communications platforms

help healthcare companies increase cost savings and

patient engagement. Switching from paper bills to

electronic bills was proven to not only decrease costs,

but it also helped drive engagement that resulted in a

reduction in late payments, changes in health behavior,

the promotion of additional services and a decrease in

customer service calls.

3 PATIENT BILLING AND COMMUNICATIONS

APPOINTMENT REMINDERS

REDUCE DAY-OF

CANCELLATIONS BY 64%.4

One healthcare provider accelerated revenue by

increasing self-pay after insurance revenue collected

from 39% to 62% by using machine learning and

predictive analytics of their own patient payments data

in the propensity to pay system.5 They used propensity

to pay as the engine that drives the strategy for tone,

timing and method for billing and communications.

4 PROPENSITY TO PAY BOOSTS REVENUE

ACTUAL DAY 1 TO DAY 59 COLLECTION PERCENTAGE

(static pool)

ACTUAL 60+ PATIENT BALANCES CUMULATIVE LIFT CURVE

(static pool)

The healthcare provider also benefited from the

propensity to pay system using machine learning and

predictive analytics based on their patients’ payments

data for patients more than 60 days overdue. Self-pay

after insurance revenue collected rose from 16% to 30%.6

0%

Business as usualPropensity to pay with machine learning and predictive analytics of providers’ payments data

10%

20%

30%

35%30%

16%

Week 0 Week 2 Week 4 Week 6

0%

Business as usualPropensity to pay with machine learning and predictive analytics of providers’ payments data

20%

40%

60%

80%

62%

39%

Month 1 Month 2 Month 3

Another healthcare provider found a similar

improvement of accelerating revenue collected with

this strategy. They increased self-pay after insurance

revenue collected from 6% to 26% from day 60 until

day 120.7

DAY 60 POOL WORKED UP TO DAY 120

0%

Dollars CollectedNumber of Payments

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Business as Usual Propensity to pay withmachine learning andpredictive analytics of

providers’ payments data

11%

31%

26%

6%

4

AppointmentMade AppointmentPayment Propensity to Pay

Propensity to Pay eBill Segmentation

SMS, Email, eVoice, Live Calls, Mobile/Web Access

Payment

PATIENT EXPERIENCE USING PROPENSITY TO PAY STRATEGIES

PROPENSITY TO PAY MODEL SEGMENTED PATIENTS

COLLECTIONS STRATEGY BASED ON SEGMENTATION

YES NO

STRUGGLINGFORGETFUL

SEGMENTATION ABILITY TO PAY

WILLINGTO PAY

YE

SN

O PROBLEMENTITLED

TONE

FREQUENCY

CHANNEL

OPTIONS

Firm RewardsSoft

One Pay Full Balance Multi-Pay SettlementMulti-Pay

Email Live VoiceEmail, SMS and eVoiceEmail and SMS

Low Intensity High Intensity

Drive patients to set up payment plans and settlements, and capture ongoing payments

STRUGGLING

FORGETFUL

PROBLEM

ENTITLED

5

Collecting payments from late patients has evolved

from in-person meetings or calls to now using the

internet. Virtual patient financial counseling websites

can emulate half of the interactions of the best patient

financial counseling staff, including establishing

payment plans, collecting payments and advising

patients of their payment options. When the credit

card industry switched from calling consumers to

collect late payments to using a virtual collection

agent, companies significantly reduced their costs.

Fifty-five percent of payments made through a virtual

collection agent were shifted from payments that

involved staff time. The other 45% were incremental

new revenue collected.8

ACI helped one healthcare provider deliver 12%

growth in efficient electronic payments over the

past year, totaling nine million payments per year.9

These payment options included API, web, CSR card

and ACH payments, and were more than double

the number of electronic payments the provider

processed just eight years ago.

One hospital increased receivables collection,

efficiency and overall patient satisfaction by accepting

credit and debit card payments at the point of service.

The hospital is now focused on not only increasing

revenue, but also the security of payments data at

the point of service. A partner of ACI Worldwide®,

Elavon’s Simplify securely encrypts card data at the

point of service and sends the encrypted transaction

data to Elavon’s payments gateway where a token

for the payments card data is created and returned

to the point-of-sale terminal. Through the Simplify

application programming interface (API), sensitive

cardholder data is isolated to reduce compliance

headaches for the hospital.

5 VIRTUAL FINANCIAL COUNSELING SHRINKS COSTS

6PATIENTS INCREASINGLY PREFER ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS

8LEARN FROM PAYMENTS LEADERS IN OTHER INDUSTRIES

7 POINT OF SERVICE PAYMENTS INCREASE REVENUE

DOMINO’S

Delivers Next-Generation Payments

Experience with ACI Worldwide®

WENDY’S

Expands Menu of Payment

Options with ACI Worldwide

CVS PHARMACY

Improves Automation and Cost

Savings with ACI Worldwide

HORIZON HEALTHCARE

Grew Members 400%

with ACI Worldwide

MASTERCARD

Uses ACI Worldwide as the Core

Processing Engine for its Mastercard

Integrated Processing Solutions

1 Forbes

2 Aite Group

3 BluePoint2

4 BluePoint2

5 Noggintechs

6 Noggintechs

7 Noggintechs

8 ACI client experience

9 ACI transaction database

6

ACI Worldwide®, the Universal Payments®

(UP®) company, powers electronic

payments for more than 5,100 organizations

around the world. More than 1,000 of

the largest financial institutions and

intermediaries, as well as thousands of

global merchants, rely on ACI® to execute

$14 trillion each day in payments and

securities. In addition, myriad organizations

utilize our electronic bill presentment

and payment services. Through our

comprehensive suite of software solutions

delivered on customers’ premises or

through ACI’s private cloud, we provide

real-time, immediate payments capabilities

and enable the industry’s most complete

omni-channel payments experience.

Americas +1 402 390 7600 Asia Pacific +65 6334 4843 Europe, Middle East, Africa +44 (0) 1923 816393

© Copyright ACI Worldwide, Inc. 2018 ACI, ACI Worldwide, ACI Payment Systems, the ACI logo, ACI Universal Payments, UP, the UP logo, ReD, PAY.ON and all ACI product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of ACI Worldwide, Inc., or one of its subsidiaries, in the United States, other countries or both. Other parties’ trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.

ATL6836 12-18

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