Education and Clarity: The Keys to a Positive Patient Financial Experience

The vice president of revenue cycle at Atrium Health explains how other revenue cycle leaders can benefit from streamlining billing statements and providing patients with financial education.

Being able to articulate to patients how much they owe in a clear and concise manner is critical and has been brought to the forefront by the No Surprises Act. An opportunity to improve a disconnect in communication can start as early as patient scheduling, check in, or check out.

Chris Johnson, vice president of revenue cycle at Atrium Health, says that although burdensome to some hospitals, the move toward price transparency is only going to help improve that patient financial experience, especially when patients are educated on the information they are being presented.

"I know it's been a difficult journey for a lot of us, and the rules that require us to do some of this don't always line up with reality of either what we can do or what needs to be done. But I still believe that it should be considered a positive thing because, ultimately, it's going to give patients more information about what they will ultimately owe out of pocket and options for resolving the out-of-pocket expense," Johnson said.

The revenue cycle space is seeing a boom in automation and technology, giving patients better access to patient portals, digital front doors, and payment options.

While patients may be getting an information overload through their bills and statements, once this information is paired down and streamlined, the advancement of technology can make the patient financial experience easier and more transparent.

Johnson echoed this point by saying that "healthcare has been providing more and more information to the patients through online portals. We are moving down multiple payment paths, trying to make that a component of the patient experience as easy as it can be."

"The ultimate goal is to give the patient the information they want, when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it, including the ability to make payments and to interact with us on their financial issues in any manner that they see fit," he said.