What We Learned at the PFE NOW Summit

When it comes to the patient financial experience, communication and transparency are key.

HealthLeaders recently held its virtual Patient Financial Experience NOW Summit, bringing together organizations to discuss the revenue cycle process from the patient’s perspective.

Revenue and finance executives from Avera Health, Community Medical Center, Ochsner Health, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and VHC Health served as panelists throughout the day’s sessions.

With the event’s focus on the patient financial experience, panel topics ranged from patients’ preferred methods of communication, seeing patients as consumers, and simplifying the billing process.

Patient communication

During the first session, panelists discussed how their organizations have changed their approach to patient communication in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. John Zabrowski, SVP, chief financial officer, and chief strategy officer for VHC Health, explained how the system worked to expand its virtual presence as telehealth options became a necessity.

“Interestingly enough, we’d been working on it, it was on our road map,” he said. “But we are a smaller, independent healthcare system growing, so for us to have fully invested in it and get it up and running, we were pretty proud of that.”

Ochsner Health refined their text messaging campaign, sending reminders for important appointments or test results. According to Eduardo Benitez, director of physician billing, credentialing, TPL, and customer service, those efforts helped soothe the anxieties and stress that patients can feel when they try to contact their provider. Additionally, the system expanded their payment method offerings to include Apple Pay and the option to pay by phone.

Not overlooking patients in rural areas, Sarah Hartwig, patient access officer for Avera Health, expressed the importance of maintaining multiple channels of communication for patients and being mindful of those who may not be tech savvy or even dealing with a language barrier.

“We have immigrant populations, we have refugee populations. Language needs to be considered,” she said.

Patients as consumers

According to Melissa Woods, the financial journey begins with the patient, making sure that they’re educated and that they understand upfront what their costs are going to be. One way the system does this is through its financial resource center on its website, the associate vice president of revenue cycle at Ochsner Health said

Similarly, at Vanderbilt Health, Heather Dunn expressed that in addition to financial resources being available online, the system is also making efforts to expand its bundles program. The system goes to employers directly with their offerings so patients don’t have to pay out-of-pocket costs, which she says has been very successful.

The system also has a price estimate tool on the system’s website.

“We truly believe that patients should know their financial responsibility,” Dunn explained.

“Whether they choose to schedule with Vanderbilt or not, they should have a tool that helps them through their benefits, understand what their financial responsibility is going to be.”

Stress-free statements

The last panel of the summit dug deeper into billing practices, specifically how organizations can simplify their process and actual statements so patients understand what they’re paying for.

Ochsner Health’s Savanah Arceneaux, director of pre-service and financial clearance, discussed the system’s payment plan structure and the patient account customer service team that can set up plans on the back end after a patient receives a bill, as well as answer their billing questions.

“We also have financial counselors that can help set up payment plans at the time of service when patients check in and we’re not able to get that within our pre-service collections,” she said.