Self pay healthcare accounts should be self pay collection accounts. Your how to guide to self cure.

As the world of collections changes and healthcare has taken over as the primary business line over credit cards the way we do collections has changed also. Self Pay healthcare is defined as “Self–paying is a term used to describe someone who choose to pay for their treatment directly rather than using private health insurance. It is an option if you don’t want to pay a monthly premium, have a chronic or pre-existing condition or fall within an insurer’s list of exclusions.” Here is your 3 step guide to make those accounts “self cure”.

Self cure is defined by me as “communication channels that allow the consumer to pay or cure their debt online or by use of an IVR.” So how do we get the self pay patients to self cure? Here are three steps to drive payments to those self cure channels.

The first step is to get the technology in place. You will need a great payment site and an IVR tree. Not just any old technology, not the cheapest pay site either. You need the site to be very easy to use and to drive the consumer to make that payment now. This site must be easy to authenticate as well as easy to navigate. The site should collect opt ins and provide all the proper compliance. But most of all the site needs to drive the consumer to pay.

An IVR needs to be in place for the consumers who are less tech savvy or just prefer to use the phone. This system also needs to be easy to use and provide all the opt ins and compliance as well.

Step two is to drive the consumer to the technology. This can be done from several channels such as letters, phone calls, text messaging, emails and more. Just because you have the technology in place does not insure success as you must get the consumer to interact with the technology to get paid. How you use the channels to drive that interaction is very important. The message must be clear and the channel must be open and easy to navigate. This is where most companies fail. They think that just because they put the pay site URL on their letters thats all they need to do. Wrong! This is now direct marketing not debt collection, the message needs to be clear and friendly, like a Billy Mays ad for Oxi Clean.

The last step is to keep improving the channels and technology. In order to do this you will need lots more technology to track the current technology. Google Analytics will help but you will need to be able to attribute each online payment to a particular channel. Did Jane Doe pay her bill online because of the letter she received, the email, the voice mail drop or was it from your hold music at the 800 number after-hours?

As you can begin to see trends in consumer behaviors to your channels you can do some A/B testing with slightly different messages to see what is most effective.

So the conclusion is you need the best technology and the best channels to be the best at self cure. Since you have just one chance at this call an expert to help you get it set up. Lighthouse Consulting has worked with many companies to set up self cure programs, we know more about this subject and the technology that anyone. Give us a call to get some guidance when setting up or improving your self cure process.