Free downloadable report from NCO Group & insideARM.com gives hospitals a prescription for fiscal well-being.
The rising cost of healthcare has captured national attention for over two decades. This comes as no surprise given that healthcare spending accounts for approximately 1 in every 6 dollars spent in the United States each year. Primary causes for rise in bad debt include: a down economy resulting in job loss (resulting in an increase in the amount of self-pay); and employers passing the rising costs of insurance premiums, co-pays, and deductibles on to their employees.
Meanwhile healthcare providers must deal not only with declining payments from all payers, but also face some troubling yet unmistakable facts: more treatment of the growing population of baby boomers and their increasing medical needs; increased number of uninsured or underinsured individuals; larger co-pays and deductibles passed on from employers to employees and Medicare eligible seniors; and the resulting increase in self-pay patients.
What the healthcare industry needs today is a clear prescription for fiscal well being from qualified service partners. A solution that assists healthcare organizations in taking a proactive stance to address current bad debt loads now and prepare to handle increasing bad debt in years to come.
The Rise in Healthcare Bad Debt: by the Numbers
The following statistics help build a framework for managing patient payment processes today that will help avoid the burden of bad debt in the future.
A 2010 survey by Chicago-based credit agency TransUnion of 46 healthcare organizations in all 50 states found that almost 75 percent said the current recession had done more damage than the 2001 downturn. Additionally, approximately two-thirds (65 percent) of survey respondents indicated their healthcare organization has a bad debt percentage of between 1 percent and 5 percent. About 23 percent indicated they have bad debt percentages between 5.1 percent and 10 percent.
Three Steps for Healthcare Providers to Immediately Reduce Self-Pay Bad Debt
Download the Healthcare Bad Debt paper and get the full list:
- Start the dialog with patients early in the process.
- Utilize services and tools to help with verification and eligibility for benefits.
- Download the paper for the complete list with more analysis.
How is Your Healthcare Organization Preparing for the Inevitable Increase in Bad Debt?
We’ve got a list of must-ask questions for your organization, including:
- Are your Net Days A/R over 45?
- Is your hospital’s bad debt over 5 percent of total revenue?
- Are your Days in Total Discharged Not Final Billed (DNFB) over 4?
- Are your Pre-Service Point of Service Collections increasing on a year over year basis?
- Are your self-pay collections increasing on year over a year basis?
Download the paper and get the full list of questions that you have to ask!
Managing Editor, insideARM.com