Simple Solutions to Improve the Patient Financial Experience

A positive financial experience is an essential part of healthcare, and providers play a key role in ensuring it. Financial considerations are present at every stage of the health and wellness journey, from the initial search for care to post-care interactions with the provider. Patients and clients are constantly aware of and impacted by costs at various stages, including:

• Researching costs when learning about treatments
• Discussing payment options for out-of-pocket expenses with a staff member
• Paying a copay at the time of care
• Receiving a post-care bill

As healthcare costs continue to rise and more of the burden shifts to consumers, health and wellness providers have an opportunity to help improve the patient financial experience and, in turn, overall patient satisfaction. But before we jump into practical ways to do that, let’s step back and assess what’s changed and what’s stayed the same about the process.

What’s Changed About the Patient and Client Financial Experience

To understand why supporting the patient financial experience is so important, let’s look at the changes that have influenced the payment journey for patients and clients.

Patients are paying more out-of-pocket costs

It’s no surprise that financial considerations loom large for many patients and clients. Healthcare costs have surged over the past several decades — national health expenditures more than tripled from 2000 to 2022.¹

As the costs of treatments, prescription drugs and health and wellness services have increased in absolute terms, patients and clients today are also shouldering a large share of these expenses.² This shift makes the impact of rising costs more prevalent and pressing for many.

Healthcare consumerism is on the rise

Because many patients and clients are paying a larger portion of their healthcare costs, they may also be more aware of — and engaged in — their healthcare spending. As a result, patients and clients may approach these purchases with many of the same habits, preferences and expectations they bring to other types of spending. This includes factors like:

• Considering ratings and reviews 
• Expecting a high level of customization, convenience and customer service 
• Leveraging digital and mobile technology
• Researching costs
• Selecting the most appealing payment options

Since so many of today’s patients and clients are interfacing with customer service touchpoints in other major spending areas (e.g., food, lifestyle and entertainment), they may also have less tolerance for a poor customer experience in health and wellness.

What's Stayed the Same About the Patient Financial Experience

Now that we’ve reviewed changes to the patient financial experience, let’s take a look at what aspects of the payment process have remained the same.

The patient and client financial experience remains crucial

Even as trends in healthcare payments tick upward, it’s important to remember that financial considerations have never been separated from the patient journey. Patients and clients have nearly always factored the cost of care into their decisions to move forward with certain providers. 

However, as they now take on more of that cost, how health and wellness providers support the patient and client financial experience makes a significant difference when it comes to patient engagement, satisfaction and retention.

The patient and client financial experience still impacts healthcare decisions 

As patients and clients assume greater financial responsibility for out-of-pocket health and wellness expenses and have higher expectations as healthcare consumers, financial experiences can affect their opinions and decisions related to care. For example, their concerns about high prices or covering the costs of care (i.e., insufficient insurance coverage) can cause them to delay or decline care or fail to follow a provider’s full recommendations.

In other cases, a lack of price transparency, flexible payment options and user-friendly technology could cause patients to seek out a different provider altogether. The same factors could even cause existing patients and clients to leave a provider and try a new option, and receiving unexpected (or unexpectedly high) healthcare bills can negatively impact patient retention.³ 

Even when financial aspects of the patient healthcare journey don’t directly influence care decisions, they can still affect patient satisfaction and the provider-patient relationship. A patient or client may have a successful treatment outcome, but an unexpected post-care balance billing or a poorly handled collection conversation can create frustration. This can drive the patient or client to seek future care elsewhere, leave a negative review about the provider or have an overall negative experience.

Here, we’ll look at how providers like you have an opportunity at each stage of the patient or client journey to support — and improve — the patient and client financial experience.

Improving the Financial Experience in Health and Wellness

An effective way to support a better patient financial experience is by integrating financial aspects of care in relevant ways throughout the wellness journey. While each health and wellness provider may define this journey differently, all can benefit from examining key touchpoints and considering what patients and clients want and need financially along the way.

Here, we’ll look at each stage one at a time and offer tips and strategies for implementing them into your daily operations. 

Before the appointment and first contact

When patients and clients first realize they need or want care and begin exploring their options, online research is a common way to start. During this step, health and wellness providers can stand out by sharing information on their websites, such as:

• Availability of health and wellness financing and payment plans
• Forms of payment and insurance accepted
• Patient or client financial obligations (expectations for payment amount and timing)
• Pricing for common procedures and services

When a patient or client decides to make contact — often by calling to make an appointment or filling out an online form — there is an opportunity to make a strong first impression. Some of the same information patients and clients find helpful when doing research can be shared here as well.

 In addition, it may be possible to share financial policies, cost estimates and payment expectations specific to the type of appointment needed.

Appointment and financial discussion 

During the appointment, opportunities to share financial information and provide helpful tools and resources abound. These can include traditional steps like:

• Having honest and helpful conversations about the costs of care and budget concerns
• Posting signage like clings and posters directing patients and clients online for more details
• Providing printed financial policy documents, financing options and information on payment portals

Having dedicated staff available to answer questions and provide advice is beneficial. It also pays to ensure that all patient- and client-facing staff have the training and tools to help them deliver a consistent and positive financial experience for every patient and client.

Post-care billing 

When it comes to billing for balances due, there are two priorities to keep in mind: preventing surprises and providing solutions. 

Preventing unexpected health and wellness bills depends mostly on the earlier stages of the patient or client journey, but it is also helpful to deliver clear information and easy access to people or resources that can help answer questions, address issues or assist in other ways. 

Perhaps most importantly at this point, presenting helpful options for managing payments can make a big difference in patient satisfaction and can even impact collection. 

Accepting different forms of payment, enabling online and mobile payments and offering third-party financing or in-house payment plans can all go a long way to helping clients and patients feel better about their medical bills — and be better prepared to pay them.

7 Keys to a Positive Patient and Client Financial Experience 

Improving the patient and client financial experience can be a major initiative. While challenges, opportunities and priorities may be unique in every case, some general keys to success apply across the board and may be helpful to consider at a high level.

1. Financial policies

Clear, consistent financial policies are an essential requirement for health and wellness providers that hope to improve the patient and client financial experience. 

It helps to take a close look at policies and processes related to things like sharing cost and payment information, handling billing and collection and providing service and support related to financial issues. 

Processes should be clearly defined and documented and communicated to all relevant parties (e.g., leadership, staff, patients, clients, partners, etc.).

2. Training and tools

Establishing and communicating financial policies is an important first step, but it is also essential to ensure that staff tasked with implementing those policies are equipped to do so successfully. 

This often involves focused initial training, periodic refreshers and reinforcement over time. Providing tools and resources to help staff involved in the financial aspects of the patient experience (such as tips on how to present financing options) can also be helpful.

3. Measurement

In order to gauge progress, it's important to define key success metrics, monitor them carefully and analyze results regularly. 

While the patient and client financial experience is very broad, it is possible to identify relevant data points, which may vary by provider. For example, you could look at: 

• Accounts receivable or past-due balances
• Complaints involving financial matters
• Collection at time of service
• Participation in financing programs 
• Patient retention
• Patient satisfaction

4. Conversation support

One natural but often tricky challenge lies in the fact that many people don’t feel comfortable talking about money. Staff may be hesitant to share financial information or discuss costs and payments, especially if they feel the details may be seen as bad news. 

The good news is that patients and clients often truly want, need and welcome this kind of conversation, which enables them to avoid surprise bills and budget more effectively for their health and wellness spending. 

Providing education and training for staff can help empower them to have transparent and supportive financial conversations with patients.

5. Technology

Thoughtful integration of technology is very important. In some cases, this may mean less is more, especially if integration with legacy systems seems prohibitively complicated or costly. 

Instead, look for ways to leverage helpful free or low-cost online resources, or partner with third-party providers that can deliver standalone solutions or integrate readily at specific points, focusing on incremental priorities. 

Fortunately, advanced tech tools are less critical than strong patient relationships and a solid approach to the patient and client financial journey.

6. Cost transparency

Providing online cost estimates and price lists is becoming easier, driven in part by recent Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) shoppable service lists.²

The increasing accessibility of free online resources like Clear Health Costs and FAIR Health Consumer Cost Lookup can be helpful for providers and their staff members as a starting point or quick reference. These are options to recommend to patients and clients for their own use, too.

7. Payment options

Finally, even when costs are perceived as high and paying them may present challenges, it is still possible to deliver a positive patient financial experience. The key is focusing on being empathetic, encouraging and helpful. 

In conversation, this can mean staff members making it clear that they understand the patient’s difficulty, share their concerns and are committed to helping them find the best way forward. 

By providing helpful options and solutions, including accepting multiple forms of payment and offering patient financing or payment plans, you can help them fit the costs of care into their budget and better navigate their patient financial journey.

A Patient Financing Solution for Health and Wellness Providers

If you are looking for a way to connect your patients or clients with flexible financing that empowers them to pay for the care they want and need, consider offering CareCredit as a financing solution. CareCredit allows cardholders to pay for out-of-pocket health and wellness expenses over time while helping enhance the payments process for your practice or business.

When you accept CareCredit, patients or clients can see if they prequalify with no impact to their credit score, and those who apply, if approved, can take advantage of special financing on qualifying purchases.* Additionally, you will be paid directly within two business days.

Learn more about the CareCredit credit card as a financing solution or start the provider enrollment process by filling out this form.

Author Bio

Michelle Seitzer is a freelance writer and editor with more than 15 years of experience working for top brands and publications on healthcare, finance and retirement topics. She has written for ADHD Online, First Horizon Bank, The Hartford Extra Mile and more.

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