Aside from taking care of patients, one of the primary goals of a doctor is to collect revenue. After all, it’s how it keeps them in business.
But this is one of the most challenging business aspects as a provider. Around 56% of American patients delay paying their bills, and some avoid it altogether. In fact, as of 2016, almost 70% of patients with hospital invoices of $500 or less didn’t pay in full.
These issues make it difficult for the doctor to receive what is due to them. While there are many reasons why a patient might not pay in full or on time, there are steps doctors can take to encourage it.
One way is by offering online payment methods. Consumers value quick, convenient options when it comes to services. The healthcare market is no exception as it’s becoming digital in almost every aspect. Around 80% of patients want to pay their medical statements electronically.
Because of this, offering digital options is so important as a healthcare provider. As consumers see the value in it, your practice needs to as well.
Here are the top 20 benefits of offering online payments at your medical practice.
Table of Contents
Saves Time
One of the most obvious benefits is that online payments save time. This is true for both your practice and the patient.
Your practice saves time on administrative tasks when patients can pay automatically online. I’ll touch more on this in the other benefits, but it reduces the overall workload that you have to do when collecting payments.
For example, you don’t need to spend so much time on the printing and mailing process if patients can sign up for paperless billing. It also saves your front-end team time if they don’t need to take as many payments over the phone or in the office.
Online payments also save patients time. They won’t need to call your practice to settle their balance over the phone. They also don’t need to take time writing out a check and going to the post office to buy a stamp and mail the bill.
Reduces Days Sales Outstanding
By saving time on behalf of your team and your patients, you ultimately reduce your days sales outstanding (DSO). This is the average number of days it takes for you to collect payments for a service. The longer it takes, the less revenue you have for some time.
Between waiting on insurance, sending patients their invoices, and waiting on them to pay, it could take months before you receive what’s due to you. So many factors go into why some practices experience longer DSO. But one reason has to do with how patients pay.
Think about it. If you use paper billing, it could take several weeks for a patient to receive the invoice once your print vendor sends it. It could even take several weeks just for the statement to process before printing and mailing. Once they do receive it in the mail, you have to wait for them to send the money and rely on the mailing system to deliver promptly.
Or maybe you take payments on-site and the patient is waiting until their next visit to pay. No matter which of these collection methods you use, both lengthen your DSO compared to online payments. Electronic methods take less time for the customer to complete, they can pay from anywhere, and processing is almost immediate.
More Efficient
These electronic portals are much more efficient than traditional options. As you can already see from the two examples above, snail mail delays the process for everyone. If it takes up more time, it isn’t as convenient for anyone.
Because 81% of Americans have smartphones, they can settle their bills from anywhere at any time. People are more likely to choose the faster and more convenient method for their services. That’s why the average adult spends 60% of their food budget on eating out. If it’s more convenient, they’ll spend more money on it.
Since people value efficiency, they’ll likely pay their health bills on time with the convenience of electronic options. In just one month, 70% of smartphone owners said that they paid a bill with a mobile app. Another 48% used the biller’s website which people can also do using their smartphones.
Reduces Need for Cash or Checks
If clients are paying through mail or onsite, you both may end up dealing with cash or checks. These sound archaic, but people do still use them. As of 2018, cash made up a little more than 5% of bill-pay methods, and checks made up over 15%.
Using cash or checks just adds more security risks and creates a hassle for everyone. But if you offer more methods, more people will likely choose those. This way, you won’t need to keep cash at your practice or deposit checks.
Easier to Manage
Electronic portals make it easier to manage money, especially when it reduces the need for cash or check. Online tools manage the transactions for you so you don’t have to worry about running the transaction yourself.
You also won’t need to take cash or checks to the bank. Eliminating or decreasing this administrative task is another time-saving benefit.
Secure and Reliable
Even with cybersecurity risks, online payments offer the best security for transactions. Banks and large companies use technology such as encryption to keep clients’ details safe. This isn’t possible with other transaction methods.
Patients can’t verify that the cash they sent through the mail arrived at your practice. Depending on the status of someone’s bank account, a check they sent could also end up bouncing when your practice goes to deposit it. This leads to even more problems like hefty fees or bank restrictions. But with instant online payments, the funds transfer to your practice’s bank account right after processing.
Transactions over the phone can also be a challenge. It isn’t as easy for a staff member to gather patient information over the phone to enter into their system. They could end up mishearing the card numbers or names. This makes it a hassle to get the bill settled.
Low Risk of Theft
Since online options are more secure, there’s a lower risk of theft. Without statements going through the mail, no one needs to worry that they may get intercepted or sent to the wrong address. This would be problematic whether the patient used cash, check, or filled in their credit or debit card details.
Having a paper at your office with these financial details is a risk that someone could steal the patients’ data. If their information ends up stolen, chances are that they’ll switch practices. 54% of customers would be likely to change providers after a breach of their personal information.
via Software Advice
Again, lowering the need for cash and checks is more secure too. There’s less of a risk for robbery if you don’t keep these materials in the office.
Eliminate Carbon Footprint
Okay, it’s a stretch to say that online payments would eliminate your carbon footprint. But it does help lower it.
As more people switch to digital options, you don’t need to use so much paper. Clients won’t need a return envelope since they don’t need to send money back to you. You can offer the option to receive their statements online so you can go completely paperless with billing.
Sending online invoices instead of printing 1,000 saves you 3,000 sheets of paper. This saves enough fuel to travel 27 miles. It could save even more paper if you send other mailing inserts. Patients also don’t need to use cash or checks, saving even more.
via Invoicera
Saves Money
Sending less paper doesn’t just save the environment; it also saves money. Maybe you didn’t want to use color statements because they were too expensive to print. Or let’s say you did splurge on it because you know the benefits of it for good design.
Switching to online billing gives you full access to color invoices without the extra cost for ink. You also save on paper between the envelope, statement, and return envelope. And that’s not even mentioning any extra inserts or past due reminder letters.
Reduces Labor
You don’t just save on money from goods, but also labor. Since you don’t need to spend as much effort on printing and mailing or answering phones, your team can focus on other tasks.
Administrative workloads already increase burnout among physicians. If your practice can spend less time on these efforts, then the decreased labor also eases some of the stress.
Attracts More Clients
I mentioned before that 80% of patients want to use online portals for statements. Because so many people prefer this option, this can be a selling point for your business.
This offers a competitive advantage and makes your practice more appealing for new and current clients. One survey found that 63% of people were more likely to shop at a retailer if it accepts digital payments. The same goes for healthcare as consumers look for doctors with digital advantages.
Younger generations especially look for these choices. Electronic payments are most popular for those ages 30-39 at 57%.
Both Generation Z and Millennials choose providers based on digital offerings and convenience. As these groups become doctors’ main target prospects, providers need to keep up with what the generations want.
It’s even more important since young people are less likely to see a doctor. If practices don’t keep up with modern ways of attracting clients, they’ll eventually start seeing fewer patients.
Offers Better Customer Experience
The reason so many people want this digital service is that it provides a better customer experience. Traditional methods just don’t work as well anymore because of what newer generations value in a business.
Let’s be honest, few people want to take the time to call your practice and pay by phone. You don’t want to make time for all these calls either. And even fewer of your clients are carrying around a checkbook and purchasing stamps to mail their money.
Saving time and money while being more convenient is going to be some of the most important parts of a positive customer experience. Things don’t always go as planned with visits because you can’t control everything. But extra benefits like this one will make people want to stay since it adds value for them.
Quick and Easy Setup
It might sound daunting to implement new features at your organization. You have so much on your plate already.
But electronic methods offer quick and easy setup. They make it simple with seamless integration so you don’t need to handle the heavy lifting. Of course, different vendors may offer more options that are more beneficial. So evaluating your options will help with choosing the best setup service.
Creates Trust for The Customer
Customers will trust that you care about them when you offer tools that help. It shows that you focus on their overall experience, not just the short time you spend with them in the office.
People experience anxiety when it comes to money, especially medical bills. One survey found that 37% of people had concerns about how they would afford medical care. And 53% of families with children worried that they wouldn’t be able to pay.
Since clients already have worries over their bills, you want to provide the best ways for them to pay. Providing the tool that they most prefer and rely on demonstrates that you address their needs.
Decreases Late Payments
Since people save time with this method, they’re less likely to delay handling their bills. They can deal with it from anywhere and it takes minimal effort to submit it online. Because it’s more convenient, they won’t be as likely to put it off and forget about it later on.
By decreasing tardiness, you don’t need to spend time or money on sending reminder letters. It also shortens DSO so that you collect revenue faster.
Recurring Payment Capabilities
Online payment services may offer recurring options. If people can set them up to be automatic, they have more control over when their money comes out of their account. This way they know they’ll have sufficient funds to cover what they owe. For instance, they may choose to have money withdrawn the day after they get their paycheck from work.
They also don’t need to stress about forgetting or having a late bill sent to collections. Since clients don’t need to worry about doing any of the work once they set up recurring bills, your practice will receive revenue on time.
Accepts a Wide Variety of Payments
There are so many digital forms of payment that give patients a wide variety of options for how they want to manage their invoices. If you’ve ever received a paper statement, you may notice that the business only accepts certain credit/debit cards, cash, or checks.
But using an electronic portal can provide more flexibility. People aren’t as restricted to a certain card but can also pay directly from their bank, with an e-Check, or even through PayPal. As electronic currencies become more popular, the variety will continue to grow.
via Statista
Since everyone has different preferences for how they pay as shown in the chart above, it’s helpful to have this variety.
Immediate Confirmation
If you rely on snail mail for anything, you know that the speed of service can vary. You wonder how long it will take for the mail to get to its destination. You might even worry it didn’t arrive if the recipient never mentions anything to you.
After all, it isn’t uncommon for something to get lost or delayed by the mailing system. These issues were frequent in 2020 with a huge increase in late volumes compared to 2019.
Not knowing if your money made it to the right place can be overwhelming for anyone. No one wants to get penalized for something that was the postal service’s fault. And as a doctor, you don’t want revenue delayed even longer.
But a benefit of online payments is the immediate confirmation that a transaction was successful. Clients don’t need to watch their bank accounts to see if their money made it to the doctor. Instead, they receive immediate confirmation of the transfer and can see it posted to their bank account right after it processes.
Convenient Storage of Data
Customer accounts and their billing information can get stored in one place with online portals. This eliminates the need for paper trails. This is useful if your office was collecting paper statements that clients sent back. With web portals, you no longer need to worry about destroying paper records or locking them away in a safe place.
Easy storage simplifies things so patients don’t need to consistently give you their financial details. If they can save their financial details to their account wallet, they don’t need to enter it every time they owe you something.
Metric Viewing Capabilities
Storage of their financial information isn’t the only perk for patients when using an electronic portal. They can view other stored information as well.
With an account, they’re able to review their balances, see their payment history, and track future statements. This helps them stay organized with all of their invoices so they stay up-to-date on their payments. It eliminates confusion and unnecessary phone calls if they can track what they’ve already paid and what they still owe.
Conclusion
While you balance so many tasks as a doctor, collecting revenue is something that you want to be simple. This is what keeps your practice running.
It comes with many challenges since a majority of Americans either don’t pay their bills on time or in full. This only slows down your revenue stream. But offering the most convenient ways to pay encourages people to do so.
As digital options increase across all industries, people are valuing it more in healthcare. They prefer these electronic platforms and will look for providers that have them. Because of this, your practice should be offering online payments.
It’s appealing to customers and has so many benefits for them. Not only that, but it simplifies many tasks that you manage daily. Cutting out other workloads by implementing these electronic methods means you can focus more on taking care of patients.hefty fees or bank restrictions
