When it comes to paying for healthcare, “compassionate” is probably not the first word that comes to mind for patients. As they foot a greater portion of medical expenses, it’s often an experience rife with stress and uncertainty. Providers try to give accurate price estimates, but when patients switch coverage plans or payers change their policies, it’s difficult to be sure the original estimate matches the final bill. And what if a patient simply can’t afford to pay? When 56% of consumers say they would not be able to pay an unexpected bill over $1000, this not only indicates a tough ride for patients, but points to why so many providers are struggling to collect in full – around two-thirds of patient balances over $200 go uncollected. It’s unsurprising, then, that more healthcare organizations are looking at ways to create a better financial experience for patients. Understanding the collections process from the patient’s perspective and moving away from a “one size fits all” approach may be the key to a healthier revenue cycle. Could a more compassionate approach to billing help patients meet their financial obligations? How providers are turning to compassionate billing to help patients and improve revenue Thanks to advances in data analytics and technology, providers have a host of tools at their disposal to improve the patient financial experience. The following three strategies are generating some great results for providers: 1. Use data to give patients the right payment options A common pitfall across healthcare billing is to treat every patient the same. But sending a bill and hoping it gets paid is clearly not a reliable collections strategy. A compassionate billing approach means you look at each patient’s current financial situation and consider their ability and likelihood to pay. With the rich data analytics now available, you’ll know whether a simple statement will be enough to prompt payment from the patient, or whether a little extra handholding will be needed. Are there other payment plans that might be more appropriate? Would they benefit from a call or text to remind them of the next task they need to complete? Data analytics let you tailor the process so you can help your patients pay their bills in the way that suits them best, including finding missing coverage. Novant Health used Collections Optimization Manager to automate and increase patient collections. With this solution, Novant Health saw a 5.8% increase in unit yield year-over-year, and an overall recovery rate of 6.5%. Overall increased revenue and cost savings amount to an impressive rolling average return on investment – 8.5:1. 2. Personalize the way you communicate with patients Data analytics don’t just help you offer payment plans based on the individual, they allow you to determine a patient’s preferred method of communication. Do they prefer to get a statement in the mail or via email? Are there particular communication messages that will resonate with different patient groups? Paying bills can be a sensitive topic, especially if someone is struggling financially. Being able to create personalized messages at each touch point in the process is a helpful way to build compassion and consumer trust into the financial experience, so patients are more likely to engage with the process. The University of California San Diego transformed their patient financial experience by using Collections Optimization Manager to segment patients, as part of a broader exercise to improve collections. Knowing more about individual patients’ circumstances meant they could offer more relevant communications and build a more sensitive patient engagement strategy. 3. Make it convenient and easy to pay Every patient will thank you for a quick and painless payment process. Offering flexible payment options including online, in person and phone is critical. According to Kyle Wilcox of Grinnell Regional Medical Center, this is all about the ‘golden rule’ of patient payments: treating patients as you would want to be treated. He says: “At GRMC, we provide consumers with a range of choices to make payments, such as in person, by mail, electronically online or via mobile technology, and by cash, credit or debit card. Doing so allows them to pay in a way that is most convenient for them, improving their satisfaction and the hospital’s likelihood of receiving payment.” What’s more, efficient payment tools can improve your staff workflows too, giving them more time to help patients who need extra assistance and reducing the cost to collect. Heather Grover, Vice President of Product Management for Patient Collections, Experian Health, said: “We had a small community-based hospital use Collections Optimization Manager product with PatientDial. On average, the cost to collect for many of our clients is anywhere between 7% and 15%. They saw theirs decline to 5% and over a two-year period, their cash collections increased to 42% prior.” Ultimately, there are some patients who can pay and some who can’t. It’s a sensitive topic to navigate, but when patients feel supported, they’re more likely to be able to meet their financial obligations. Collections Optimization Manager lets you figure out who’s who and offer them the most appropriate support to get their healthcare bills paid, so they can get on with life.

Before brands like Apple and Amazon became synonymous with consumer culture, the healthcare experience didn’t have much motivation to change. If you felt ill, you’d go see a doctor. The doctor would check you over, make a diagnosis and set you on the appropriate path to treatment. It was on you to initiate contact: your physician’s only job was to provide whatever care was needed, once you were in the system. Today, the healthcare journey can look quite different. Patients have options. In an increasingly crowded market, it’s now up to providers to reach out and woo healthcare consumers. To stay ahead of the competition, providers must seek innovative ways to attract new consumers and inspire loyalty among existing members. Chris Wild, Experian Health’s Senior Director of Consumer Engagement Solutions, says: “Health systems have started taking a good, hard look at how they engage with patients, whether that’s marketing to new populations or encouraging patients to come in when they are sick. It all comes down to data. With a complete picture of the patient, you can loop together clinical information with insights about their lifestyle and attitudes, so you really know who they are and what they’ll need from your health system.” Three ways consumer data can help you attract and retain patients Data-driven marketing and engagement is a growing opportunity for providers. With the right data platform, it’s easier than ever to leverage reliable, high-quality data and analytics to better understand and serve your patients. In fact, Wild suggests there are three main ways marketing data can benefit healthcare providers (you can watch Wild talk about these on video): 1. Marketing to new and existing members Why should prospective patients choose your hospital or physician’s practice? What would prevent existing patients from being tempted to switch providers? Understanding what makes your patients tick lets you pinpoint the exact benefits, priorities and language that will resonate with them most. As Wild says: “If you’ve got five health systems competing in a town of 1.5 million people, how are you going to differentiate yourself? Once a patient picks up a provider and they’re relatively satisfied, they don’t change a lot. They’re starting to look at things like quality. They’re starting to look at cost and what’ll give them the biggest bang for their buck, but getting to them first is a big first-mover advantage for sure.” ConsumerView bundles up reliable information on around 500 demographic, psychographic and behavioral attributes to help you get to know your target market, so you can get the right message in front of them at the right time. 2. Engaging with patients to improve health outcomes Even if you’re the only health system in town, there’s still a need to engage. You want your patients to achieve the best possible health outcomes and often that requires them to take ownership of their health. You can help them do that by encouraging them to come in when they are sick, or by pointing them toward services that could make it easier for them to access care. To do this effectively, you need to know what your patients need. ConsumerView has around 1500 verifiable data points on 300 million US consumers, covering about 98% of the US population. These can be used to discover how your patients think about their health and how they make their buying decisions. When that’s merged with your own information about their clinical journeys, you can give them a truly personalized healthcare experience. 3. Future-proofing your services Finally, you can use these analytics to better understand your current patient population to make smarter decisions about the investments you need to make in future. Where are the bottlenecks in the patient’s healthcare journey? Where should you put new services? Robust data analytics help you say, “we need to invest here and this is why.” Wild says, “I’m working with one analytics team that’s looking to better understand where they’re going to allocate physical and human resources so they can follow up with their patients more completely. They’re digging in deep to understand what their current patient population looks like, and then using that data to understand what their future population may look like.” Data analytics helps you predict demand for services, so you can direct resources accordingly. You’ll be able to identify trends in patient pathways, so you can engage with patients earlier and make sure they get prompt care and support, giving them a better chance of a good outcome and saving your organization time and resources. Learn more about how your organization can drive marketing results through customer segmentation, targeted messaging and analytics

It’s amazing to look back at how far medical science and digital technology have come – and how those two worlds are increasingly intertwined. Ten years ago, the idea of managing your healthcare bills or making appointments through an app on your phone would have been unthinkable. Now we take it for granted! But having all these tools at our fingertips means there’s more data being shared between different services and platforms. As a healthcare provider, you might be accessing and sharing patient data multiple hospitals, primary care services, pharmacies, patient portal providers, payers and more. It’s vital to make sure that data is accurate. Research by RAND Corporation revealed that between 8-16% of patient records are duplicates. Trying to provide care on the basis of unreliable data is inefficient and expensive for providers, who lose staff time and revenue trying to match up records and reconcile the data on file with the patient in front of them. According to RAND, a mid-size health system absorbs as much as $96 for each duplicate. What this means for patients is even more worrying. According to the US National Institutes of Health, “195,000 deaths occur each year because of medical errors, with 10 of 17 being the results of identity errors or wrong patient errors.” In a value-based system where patients are covering more of the costs themselves, the financial impact of having unnecessary repeat tests or longer-in-patient stays due to delayed treatment is an added pain. Currently, standard health IT products have some catching up to do, as only 10% of duplicates are spotted. But looking ahead, the future of patient identities is promising. Unique patient identifiers are key to unlocking value-based care The twin trends of value-based care and healthcare consumerism are bumping up patient expectations. They expect a seamless experience. They expect their records to be updated immediately. They’re confused when one department doesn’t have access to information that was just shared with another. And they definitely don’t want to see different services working off different versions of the same record. The answer for many high-performing health systems is to introduce unique patient identifiers (UPIs). This allows a patient’s record to follow them throughout their healthcare journey, ensuring that at every touchpoint, clinical and admin staff are confident in the accuracy of the information they hold. But transitioning to any new system can involve a bit of culture shock for those involved, and so careful planning is essential. What steps can providers take to make sure they implement a patient identity management strategy that’s built to last? How to future-proof your patient identity platform 1. Make sure everyone’s on board with the plan First, whatever solution you’re using to manage patient records, it’s essential that your patients, staff, payers and any other parties involved all buy in to the new approach. Changing the way you handle data and introducing new digital tools such as UPIs can often call for a mindset shift in the way your team and consumers think about data. Be sure to communicate the benefits of UPIs to patients, payers and staff. For example, UPIs can: improve patient safety, by preventing duplicate and inaccurate recordslower healthcare costs, by eliminating inefficiencies and errorssafeguard patient privacy, by keeping records securecreate a better patient experience, by supporting patient-centered carehelp staff access up to date information about their patient’s healthcare situation 2. Choose a UPI system that works within and outside your network Some providers use hospital- or practice-based patient identifiers, where a master patient index is used to link all versions of a patient’s record held within a single organization. An enterprise master patient index (EMPI) does the same, but across several facilities or services. A cross-enterprise solution makes it much easier to manage patient identities across your entire network, without having to wrangle disparate records that don’t interface well with each other. When this system is based on ‘referential matching’, which uses wider data sources and UPIs to build a more connected and accurate data ecosystem, you’ll get a much more complete view of your patients and far fewer inaccuracies. 3. Use data analytics to improve decision-making UPIs bring another advantage: they enable you to analyze health, credit and consumer data for a single patient, giving you useful insights about your patient population as a whole. A network of interoperable data can help you spot trends in the social and economic factors that affect health and wellbeing, so you can target your resources more effectively. As the world of public health data matures, it’s highly likely that UPIs will become the norm. Data-sharing remains a challenge, but by using digital tech to your advantage, you can improve the way patient records are managed in your health ecosystem. Learn more about how UPIs could help close the patient data gap in your organization.

At the end of 2019, Experian Health announced that every person in the U.S. population, an estimated 328 million Americans, had successfully been assigned a unique Universal Patient Identifier, powered by Experian Health Universal Identity Manager (UIM) and NCPDP Standards™ (the “UPI”). Universal Patient Identifiers (UPIs), created with a comprehensive view of patients from health, credit header, and consumer data sources, are thought to significantly reduce the challenges that stem from the misidentification of patients which span patient safety, financial, and operational inefficiencies. But what does 100% coverage mean? And what does this mean for the future of healthcare? To take a deeper dive, we sat down with Victoria Dames, an Experian Health leader in the identity management space to learn more. 1. It doesn’t get more perfect than 100%, so tell us more. What exactly does 100% coverage mean? Experian Health developed an algorithmic engine known as our Universal Identity Manager about five years ago. Since this time, we’ve worked closely with many providers, pharmacies and payers to help address their duplicate records. We’ve been monitoring our adoption and enumeration by unique patient identifiers against 328M individuals in the US population (2010 Census) and achieved this milestone at the end of 2019. Through our broad network of provider clients, which include hospitals, pharmacies, payers, and healthcare technology companies, patients who have received care from participating entities over the past few years have been enumerated.  As new patients enter the healthcare ecosystem, this number will continue to grow.  2. Why are universal patient identifiers (UPIs) needed and how do they benefit providers and patients? The Universal Patient Identifier (UPI) helps providers link the right records together, preventing duplicate records from being created. For example, think of all the ways duplicate accounts or variances can occur: address differences, name variations (Katherine, Kathryn, Kathy, Kat), maiden names and potential user entry error. With the UPIs, providers can link records together and have one complete record and view of the patient, ultimately leading to a better patient experience. It’s important to note that the UPI is not something the patient knows or sees, but rather part of the technology. It can be embedded within a hospital’s information system, for example. It simply links a patient’s records together, so a provider has a complete view of the patient’s identity. The flow of communication happens when participating healthcare organizations send Experian Health patient demographic information; the system provides the organization in return with the insights and identifiers that they need to better manage patient identities and prevent duplicate records. The UPI can be attached - if the situational requirement is met - to active claims in real-time transactions effectively improving the integrity of patient records. During this process Experian Health does not rely on or use any clinical information about the patient; Experian Health only leverages the minimum data elements needed to successfully match an identity.  3. How did you get numbers assigned to all Americans? When a healthcare organization enlists our help, we process all their historical records through the UIM, returning a Universal Patient Identifier (UPI). The initial run of this data helps resolve existing duplicates which can date back several years. Working with multiple providers and pharmacies, we were able to get numbers assigned to all Americans. The number will continue to evolve of course, as the population changes with births and deaths. 4. Are there privacy risks with this? Experian Health is a HIPAA-compliant Business Associate when it receives PHI from customers.  It takes its privacy obligations very seriously.  As to UIM, privacy risks are minimized by the fact that the UIM does not leverage any medical records, prescription histories, or provider systems. The purpose of the solution is to assist healthcare professionals to better match an individual’s identity through data assets that would normally be unavailable to a healthcare provider.  5. Does a UPI function similar to a credit report, meaning it provides a singular view of a patient’s medical history? It depends on the situation.  If a provider has a patient in their EHR twice under two spellings of the patient’s name in error, then yes, the UPI would link those two profiles, creating a singular view of the patient in that provider’s system. Additionally, the UPI generated by Experian Health is designed to help facilitate interoperability between healthcare providers.  For example, if your pharmacy has you listed under your maiden name of Smith and your doctor has your married name of Wilson, during the ePrescribing process, your ePrescription might not get associated with your prescription profile. If both providers have the UPI on record and submit it during the transaction, the systems will match the patient using the UPI. It’s important to note that the UPI is technology for entities and is not patient facing. 6. What is the direct benefit to consumers; will it help them control their medical data? Consumers will benefit depending on how a provider implements and utilizes the UPI. For instance, if a provider has two medical records, and they merge this into one record, the patient will see one consolidated record. Imagine two patient profiles for the same individual at a pharmacy.  One prescription is filled under each profile and the two separate prescriptions, if taken together, could lead to a severe reaction. If filled under two different profiles, the automated process to screen for drug interactions would not identify this harmful reaction. But the UPI directly solves for this issue. 7. What are the next steps and goals for Experian Health as it pertains to UIM? Our goal is to continue to partner with healthcare organizations to help prevent and resolve their duplicate records. We are continuing to invest in our technology and capabilities within identity, as we care deeply about patient safety and data integrity. Having a single, unified and accurate view of the patient is a challenge that plagues the healthcare system, and now we have a comprehensive solution that reduces the barriers to make healthcare safer.

The stats are alarming: Up to 80% of health outcomes are not due to medical factors, but to a patient’s social and economic circumstances—such as their income, housing situation and even whether they own a car.68% of Americans are affected by at least one social determinant of health (SDOH).Approximately 24% of hospitals and 16% of physician practices screen for food insecurity, housing instability, utility needs, transportation needs, and interpersonal violence—which means the majority don’t screen for all relevant social needs. The healthcare industry has been talking about the importance of addressing social determinants of health for years, but many struggle with how to collect the insights. For example, if 68% of Americans are affected by at least one SDOH, how do they even discover the one? What is the ideal way for providers to screen for SDOH? Should they simply ask the patient? Do they start a visit with a survey, probing for details that could ultimately impact care management decisions? Providers know these sensitive topics – housing instability, financial instability, food insecurity and onward – can be tough and uncomfortable conversations. So, where to begin? Should you rely on patient surveys to capture SDOH? Patient surveys can be a useful way to find out about many potential barriers to care. However, they bring limitations: Your insights will be limited to the patients who show up—so anyone who has struggled to attend an appointment (and therefore potentially with higher needs) will be left out It can be time-consuming and expensive to give staff the time and space to conduct personal interviewsThey rely on patients to be willing to share openly, but some may not feel comfortable doing soThere is room for error in how questions and answers are interpreted by both the survey team and respondentsSocial circumstances can change over time, so it’s possible that the information gleaned in the survey may not be relevant a few months down the line. Knowing SDOH can have such a huge impact on a patient’s health certainly means clinicians should discuss these topics in the exam room, but relying solely on patient surveys and conversations could lead to gaps in intel. When should you screen for SDOH? Screening for social needs when a patient first registers or engages with your services is a good starting point. But what happens when their situation changes between diagnosis and treatment? What if they disclose a social need to a specialist that wasn’t flagged on their initial intake form? Does your staff know how to discuss sensitive social issues? Can they create a safe space for patients to share? Have you got clear referral pathways when an issue is flagged? Look for possible touchpoints in the patient’s journey where referrals to support services would be appropriate. Looping in the relevant primary care services is a good way to make sure your patients are connected to community-based programs and supported throughout their journey, whenever a new or changed social need is identified. What types of data could offer the SDOH insights a provider needs? Geographical and community-level data can help a healthcare organization understand their patient population’s income, housing situation and employment status. These are useful for population-level care planning but aren’t patient-specific. A better way is to analyze securely collected consumer marketing data for more specific and accurate information. Working with a trusted data vendor that is a compiler of original-source consumer data can help you navigate your options. The real predictive power of SDOH data comes when you combine patient-specific information obtained through screening, with consumer databases. A third-party vendor can help you access data on your patient population’s income, occupations, length of residence and other social and economic circumstances. Your care managers can use this to inform proactive, preventative conversations with patients to solve any non-clinical gaps in care. Bottom line … When healthcare organizations have a holistic view of patients—and the SDOH that play a role in their lives—they can take steps to help prevent avoidable hospital visits, emergency department (ED) utilization, appointment no-shows and worsened conditions by encouraging and facilitating earlier interventions. The key is to start with the right data.

Did you know a whopping 90% of missed revenue opportunities can be linked to denied claims? At a time when providers are working to make up this lost revenue, they are also dealing with patients who are expected to cover more of their medical bills through out-of-pocket expenses. High-deductible health plans, free-care programs and crowdfunding are more prominent, leaving hospitals vulnerable to the patient’s ability to pay. Add in the rise of value-based care, and it’s no secret patients expect an experience that matches their interactions with other consumer services. They’re more engaged in their health and know they have options. Patient collections are down, but expectations are up. Loyalty wavers somewhere in the middle. How should providers respond? Legacy revenue systems aren’t set up for financial models based on value over volume, so providers need to adapt. It’s vital to find ways to help patients navigate the financial side of healthcare and make patient collection processes as efficient as possible. What does value-based care mean for your revenue cycle? Shifting to value-based reimbursements, patient-centric incentives and quality of care programs means your clinical and revenue cycle workflows need to be better connected. Patients must receive consistent and accurate communications throughout their healthcare journey, setting them up for the best possible health outcome and payment options. When the care and finance functions work together, your patient records can be kept up to date and the next admin task will be triggered at the right time. Here are some things your revenue cycle management (RCM) process might be missing: clear and convenient processes for patientsaccurate patient identification from registration to billingability to collaborate with payers to customize workflowsstreamlined workflows to reduce time and resources spent on avoidable tasksautomated processes to support effective collections and spot root causes of denialsreal-time reporting to help improve performance over time [Source: Frost and Sullivan] Data, analytics and automation can help you create more agile processes to minimize revenue leakage and create a better financial experience for patients. 3 ways to close the gaps in a value-based RCM model 1. Use consumer data to help patients make informed decisions A major cause of denied claims stems from patients being unsure about what their treatment will cost. Others are unclear about whether they have appropriate coverage. Help your patients weigh their financial options by providing accurate estimates and working with them to check coverage. Consumer data can support this process by giving you insights into your patient’s social identity, medical history, coverage status, insurance eligibility and propensity to pay. With an intuitive billing process, you’ll improve the patient payment experience and reduce revenue leakage. 2. Use analytics to predict gaps in your revenue cycle Many top-performing health systems use advanced data analytics to predict where the bottlenecks, errors and denials might creep in, so they can take swift action to address them and keep their patients and C-suite happy. For example, with analytics, you can get to know your patients better so you can segment them according to their financial responsibility and ability to pay. Not only does this mean you can focus your collections efforts more effectively, but you’ll have the right insights to help patients navigate the payment process with personalized nudges and relevant messaging. In addition, analytics have a huge role to play in eliminating avoidable denials resulting from unreliable or inaccurate patient data. You’ll be able to spot patterns in denials, so you can implement checks and processes to avoid them in future. 3. Put the right tools in place to close the gaps Close the widening gap between claims and collections starts by ensuring your patients are aware of their financial responsibility. A self-service patient portal could give your patients convenient access to their information in a time and place that suits them. They’ll be able to schedule appointments, enroll in payment plans, and apply for charity. They’ll see real-time, transparent and accurate information about price estimates and their eligibility and coverage. When the financial experience is transparent and frictionless, patients are more likely to feel satisfied and less likely to shop around for care – not to mention being better prepared to meet payment deadlines. And internally, data-driven automated software can help you monitor and manage every step of your revenue cycle. You can make life easier for clinicians and management teams with EHR-integrated dashboards, web-based financial reporting and timely alerts for the relevant teams. Schneck Medical Center used Experian Health’s Denials Workflow Manager to automate tedious manual processes, freeing up staff time and optimizing claims follow-up and collection: “No longer are we waiting 30 to 45 days to review denials. We can review them on the day of [submitting] if we choose to.” (McKenzie Smith, Director of Patient Financial Services)  It’s simply no longer viable to use RCM processes that aren’t integrated across your entire digital ecosystem. Providers that can offer a convenient and personalized consumer experience, automate collections workflows and join the dots between clinical care and revenue management will have the competitive advantage in the era of value-based care. Learn more about how your organization can use data to predict and close gaps in your revenue cycle.

Did you ever have someone tell you, “there’s no magic pill” for reaching a goal? It’s a somewhat ironic analogy, given that so many people struggle to take their meds as prescribed. Following a medicine schedule actually takes a lot of organization and discipline, never mind the financial and emotional cost of having a daily reminder that you’re not well. It’s estimated that 50% of patients don’t take medications as prescribed. Sometimes a patient is busy and misses a dose. Maybe they forget whether they’ve taken it already and accidentally take double. Perhaps they feel better and decide to stop a course of meds early. Or maybe they can’t get to the pharmacist to get their refill on time. Unfortunately, medication non-adherence (MNA) can have a more direct impact on a patient’s condition than the specific treatment itself, according to the World Health Organization. Non-adherence is thought to contribute to nearly 125,000 deaths and 10% of hospitalizations each year. It costs the health care system between $100–$289 billion each year, and according to a study by Walgreens, for every 1% improvement in adherence, $50 can be saved in healthcare spending. The causes are varied. Of course, patients have a role. But healthcare organizations operating at various points along the care continuum can also play a big part in helping or hindering patients in sticking to their prescriptions. Doing so is in everyone’s interest, as tackling non-adherence can help reduce readmissions and avoid more serious medical conditions, improve patient loyalty, yield financial savings and create a better experience all around. Here are three ways different healthcare organizations can help patients stay on track with their meds: 1. Keeping accurate patient records from hospital to home When a patient is hospitalized, it’s fairly easy for them to stick to a medicine schedule. Drugs are dispensed in the same building and brought right to the patient’s bed at the appropriate time. The problems arise when the patient goes home. They may leave hospital with new prescriptions which can be confusing and if they already have a prescription, the admission itself can disrupt their usual routine. As things stand, hospitals tend not to be reimbursed for interventions to improve adherence, so these are less likely to be prioritized during care transitions. But given the likely improvements to patient outcomes and consumer loyalty, and the fact that hospitals could save $37 for every dollar spent tackling MNA, these interventions are worth a second look. A simple but effective place for hospitals to start is in improving patient identities. When your clinical teams know they have a 100% accurate and up-to-date record for each patient, including their current prescriptions, they can help the patient stay on track and prescribe new medicines with confidence. New identity management platforms such as Universal Identity Manager can help you keep track of patients and their meds, reducing the risk of medical errors and avoiding billing mistakes associated with duplicate prescriptions and preventable readmissions. This ‘golden thread’ of patient information can also improve communications within and between providers in your health system, such as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), pharmacies and other community providers. 2. Understanding and addressing wider barriers to adherence Common barriers to adherence often relate to a patient’s circumstances at home, such as not being able to get to the pharmacy because of a lack of transport, or because the opening hours don’t fit with their work schedule. For patients juggling work, childcare and other responsibilities, refilling their prescription can easily slip down the to-do list. Pharmacies can help by offering logistical support such as automatic refill programs, home delivery and help with organizing medication into pill boxes. But how do you know which intervention will be most relevant? This requires a wider understanding of the make-up of your patient population and their needs, preferences and behaviors. Understanding the social determinants of health can help you identify the specific barriers to care for your healthcare consumers, so you can put in place the right response. 3. Develop patient engagement strategies to help patients take their meds It’s not just those directly involved in providing care who can help improve MNA. Payers can help in two major ways: firstly, by supporting members to overcome barriers such as cost and confusion, and secondly, by working with hospitals and pharmacies to help them develop effective strategies to reduce non-adherence. For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona (BCBSAZ) has introduced a text messaging service to send reminders to members about their prescriptions, with a $45-50 discount on copays for those that refill on time. It’s hoped this program will tackle behavioral barriers to adherence such as procrastination or forgetfulness, while also addressing price concerns. Chris Hogan, Chief Pharmacy Officer at BCBSAZ described the program “as being a very high tech, modern, simple and effective addition to our overall initiative to improve medication compliance.” This kind of personalized patient engagement can be very effective in helping patients to stay on track. With ConsumerView, you can access a wide range of high-quality demographic, psychographic and behavioral consumer data, to help you offer personalized support such as digital reminders to your patients. You can develop engagement strategies tailored to the specific needs of your patients in just a couple of clicks. Could one of these strategies help your organization do more to improve medication management? Learn more about how we can help you help your patients – and your bottom line.

When it comes to value-based care, there’s really just one measure that matters: patient satisfaction. As CMS incentivizes providers to help patients find better care, improve population health and lower healthcare costs, more top health systems are seeing patient engagement as the path to value-over-volume success. Patients are finding themselves footing more of the bill for medical expenses, so elevating the patient experience is essential. If they’re not satisfied, they’ll simply take their dollars elsewhere – not what your CFO wants to hear. Helping patients feel more engaged in their health creates a more satisfactory experience, and in turn, boosts patient loyalty. And what’s more, by giving them opportunity to make informed decisions about their care, you can also reduce preventable admissions, avoid no-shows and fix the revenue leaks in patient collections. It’s beneficial for everyone. Here are four strategies to help you boost patient engagement and create a more consumer-friendly experience in your organization. 4 ways to boost patient engagement 1. Use segmentation and customization The first route to consumer-friendly care is about treating each patient as an individual. With advances in data analytics, it’s now possible to group your patients according to risk (whether that’s risk of a particular disease, exposure to a social determinant of health, or likelihood of non-attendance at follow-up). This allows you to be more targeted in your marketing efforts, provide patients with information that’s more relevant to them, and help each patient move to the next stage of their healthcare journey. Stanford Medical School sees this data transformation as central to its vision of “‘Precision Health’ – a more preventive, predictive, personalized and precise” approach to healthcare. Analytics give you a wealth of insights about the clinical, financial, behavioral and social factors affecting your patients, so you can personalize your patient engagement strategy to each member’s specific preferences and needs. As noted in research undertaken by Frost and Sullivan on behalf of Experian Health: “Analytics help us select patients who will respond to engagement strategies and de-select patients who won’t respond are needed. Not everyone responds to engagement in the same way.” By prioritizing precision marketing, you can create a culture of precision care. 2. Help patients take ownership of their health journey Value-based care is an opportunity to empower patients to be active players in their health. Greater transparency into the billing process, access to healthcare data and consumer-friendly tech can all help patients see what’s happening at each stage of the process. When they’re more informed, they’re more likely to adhere to care plans, turn up to appointments and successfully navigate payments. Your patient portal is a good place to start. Research shows that use of portals enhances patient engagement, satisfaction and health outcomes. Patients can access their records, view test results, schedule appointments at a time that suits and sort out bills with less of the stress. It helps patients ask the right questions and builds a trusting patient-provider relationship. 3. Improve the patient financial experience When two-thirds of Americans are worried about being able to cover unexpected medical bills, any way you can make the payment process more transparent is a big plus. Help your patient navigate the financial side of their healthcare experience with clear, real-time information about their coverage status, estimated co-pay calculations and appropriate payment plans based on their specific circumstances. Putting them at ease will help them meet their financial obligations without leaving a bad taste. In this way, you can build consumer trust and optimize your revenue cycle at the same time. 4. Use SDOH data for proactive outreach Research shows that medical tests and treatments alone are not enough to determine the outcome of a patient’s healthcare journey. We should be paying more attention to the social and economic factors that can get in the way of care. Because when patients struggle to access care, it’s harder for them to follow treatment plans or show up to important follow-up appointments. In a value-based world, tackling social needs is a growing priority for providers seeking to improve population health. When you have a more complete grasp of each patient’s motivations, support networks and personal circumstances, you can create a more efficient patient engagement plan. You’ll avoid wasting resources on patients who aren’t in a position to respond and instead can adopt outreach strategies to help those patients access the care they need. This might include offering alternative payment plans, signposting to logistical support such as childcare or transport, or referring to local community services, such as cooking classes or social clubs. To do this, you need reliable, relevant and accurate consumer data and the capability to draw actionable insights. Experian Health’s unrivaled consumer marketing data can help you better understand your patient population so you can communicate with them and support them in the most effective way. Consumer-friendly care is the new currency in value-based accounting – and the key to positive patient engagement. Find out more about how Experian Health can help your organization lift your patient engagement strategies for greater patient satisfaction, better health outcomes, and a healthier

  Recently I had the opportunity to present at a regional chapter of the National Association of Healthcare Access Management about the growing need for business intelligence to improve patient access functions, as well as revenue. In speaking with attendees, it became clear that automating the patient access workflow with real-time data can create a more efficient and accurate process. Here’s how. As the responsibility for paying healthcare bills increasingly falls to patients themselves, patient access can make or break the revenue cycle. From registration and verifying insurance details, to scheduling appointments and collecting cash payments—this is the front line for the financial side of the patient experience. When you consider that half of denied claims occur earlier in the revenue cycle at the point of registration, improving those early-stage patient access processes is the obvious place for providers to look when seeking to minimize lost revenue. Revenue loss in patient access is mostly due to errors in patient identification, inadequate data analytics and inefficient workflows. If front and back office teams were better connected and able to work together quickly to communicate and resolve issues, many of these errors could be prevented. Without reliable tools and workflows to support this, those teams often must resort to manual fixes for any errors that arise. Unfortunately, this takes time and effort, blocking opportunities to find new ways to improve decision making and business performance. Healthcare is becoming more competitive. Providers must work to leverage the right data in the right way to safeguard profits and offer a better patient experience. That said, where should you start? Doing more with less requires the right data insights There are two sides to the solution: first, you need to be sure your data is accurate from the start. Around a third of denied claims are caused by inaccurate patient identification, while 12% of patient records are duplicates. Cleaning up your data with high-quality demographic data can help eliminate preventable denials. Secondly, you need to be able to draw insights from your data to help make smarter decisions in the future. Let’s say you notice a spike in late payments from a certain population. Why is that? Looking at historical data on patient and payer behavior can point to emerging trends and help you figure out where to focus your efforts in response. Or perhaps you’ve recently added a new function to your patient portal. Analytics can help you see if and how patients are using it and evaluate its overall performance. Once you have your data and analytics in place, you can start to use it to make improvements. Automating the patient access workflow with real-time data can create a more efficient and accurate process. It will also help link front and back office staff with shared systems that minimize errors and wasted staff time. 3 ways to use data analytics to streamline patient access For providers looking to streamline their early revenue cycle processes using the power of data, three areas to focus on are: Creating a better patient experience Increasing numbers of self-pay patients means patient loyalty is a growing priority for providers. Creating a positive, straightforward patient financial experience is essential for hospitals and health systems looking to reduce the stress and anxiety many patients feel when dealing with healthcare bills. Using data insights to identify the sticky parts in your patient access processes can help you spot opportunities to improve the consumer experience. For example, are patients receiving duplicate communications because the system is failing to update demographic information? Are there bottlenecks or backlogs that are creating stressful delays for patients? A business intelligence tool such as Revenue Cycle Analytics can help you pinpoint the root cause of delays and errors so you can work to fix them—and level-up your patient experience. When Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital (MLKCH) realized patient registration in their busy Emergency Room was a bottleneck and source for claim denials, they implemented an automated platform to streamline their registration process and improve the data being captured at the point of registration. Lori Westman, patient access manager at MLKCH says: “We get fewer denials because we’re getting true verification data, and our patient volumes continue to increase. So the fact that we can take off two to three minutes, at least, on half of our registrations is speeding up the work for the team, and the turnaround time is much better for the patients.” Uncovering potential revenue loss Analytics can show you exactly where your revenue cycle is losing money. Using appropriate benchmarks and custom KPIs, you can analyze accounts across the entire cycle to make sure your existing revenue cycle solutions are performing optimally and identify new opportunities for improvement. By gathering together multiple data streams into a single dashboard, you’ll get an at-a-glance view of your revenue cycle performance, so you can drill down to the root cause of denials. This also helps link up your front and back office staff. Rather than working retrospectively to address issues as they happen, your back office team can use insights from whole system data reporting and analytics to give front office staff immediate feedback on where denials are occurring. Monitoring payer rules and performance With American hospitals footing the bill for more than $620 billion in uncompensated care over the last two decades, it’s vital to verify a patient’s insurance options as soon as they set foot in the hospital. With up to date information on payer rules and a robust process for finding missing coverage, you can avoid protracted negotiations with payers and focus on denials, rejections and exceptions. A payer dashboard can also help you assess how payers are performing against one another, so your discussions around timely payments will be based in fact. By analyzing performance around pre-service, point of service and post-service, you’ll be better placed to work more closely with payers to minimize the risk of both late payments and denied claims. Learn more about how data analytics and an automated patient access workflow can help eliminate costly denied claims, boost revenue cycle performance and improve the patient financial experience. Steven Thiltgen is Director of Analytics Consulting for Experian Health