Medical Billing Analysis

Making Your Medical Billing Communications Clear to Your Patients

Patient communication is an area of medical billing that is often overlooked. Medical professionals have had to get better at communicating with their patients when it comes to what is wrong and what the appropriate treatments are. However, the same cannot be said about communicating with patients about their billing. And this can have a negative effect on the revenue cycle.

Medical Billing from the Patient's Perspective

Michael goes to the doctor's office for an appointment. Before going in, Michael gives the receptionist his insurance card before being given a pile of paperwork to fill out. Somewhere in that pile of paperwork is a consent form for billing. After visiting

His first thought is, "Why am I getting an invoice? I paid my co-pay and the insurance company is supposed to take care of the rest."

The invoice itself is not very clear. It shows a grand total for services rendered on the day Michael visited the doctor. It shows the amount the insurance company paid against that balance. At the bottom, it shows the amount he has to pay. His reaction would be one of two, either completely ignoring the bill thinking there was a clerical error or calling the medical billing person at the doctor's office to get an explanation.

If he calls the doctor's office, the explanation he gets may boil down to "it's the amount your insurance company didn't pay. You have to pay it." He hangs up the phone just as confused as before.

Making the Patient Experience Something Entirely Different

There is no real way to educate patients on every aspect of the billing cycle. However, it is possible to make the experience less confusing for the

You may charge $100 for the annual physical and $30 for the bloodwork. That information should be clear to the patient.

Don't load the invoice down with medical jargon. You can understand it. The typical patient does not.

Provide the patient with an initial bill, before the insurance carrier pays. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it actually works. This extra bit of communication actually helps the patient understand what is happening along the way, instead of being presented with a final bill a month or two after the visit.

The initial invoice should give an outline of services rendered, the amount expected from the insurance company, and any balance the patient may have to pay. The insurance company will send an explanation of benefits after that, showing what they paid. Then, you can send a final invoice for the amount due, if the patient has not already paid. This progression of information keeps the patient abreast on what is happening, which puts them at ease when the balance is due.

Use color to your advantage. Color can help guide a person's eye to key pieces of communication.

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