Offer price estimates for ‘self-service’
Patients want online options
Patients are asking patient access staff for “various self-service options” for registration processes, including price estimates, reports Angela Long, associate vice president of administrative services in revenue management at Geisinger Health System in Danville, PA.
To meet this need, the organization’s online patient portal now allows individuals to obtain a price estimate for a service they are interested in receiving.
“Patients enter their insurance and the type of service they are interested in receiving,” says Long. The portal then performs a real-time insurance eligibility transaction to verify that the patient has a valid insurance plan and coverage for the service they are interested in receiving. If they do, they will then receive a price estimate of the out-of-pocket expense they can expect for that particular service at one of our locations,” says Long.
Geisinger has offered online patient portals for eight years, beginning with giving patients the ability to review their lab results and expanding to allow patients to pay balances. A patient service call center fields all calls from patients about how much it would cost to receive services, but patients now can choose to do this step online.
At times, something unexpected occurs that adjusts the out-of-pocket expense, so patients are clearly informed they’re receiving an estimate and not a guaranteed price. “We have some challenges maintaining the set-up behind this tool, given the ever-changing coverage terms of a particular insurance and/or contract,” says Long. “Also, the tool we use is all in-house and not a vendor offering, so the support of this is all internal.”
When the system was first implemented three years, the patient had two options to obtain the estimate: filling out a form that is routed to an agent who contacts the patient with the estimate, or calling to obtain the estimate.
“We expanded on the functionality to provide a price estimate for over 200 services here at Geisinger online, self-serve by the patient,” says Long. “We have integrated the insurance eligibility to ensure we are providing the patient with an estimate applicable to their particular insurance.”
Patients are asking patient access staff for various self-service options for registration processes, including price estimates, reports Angela Long, associate vice president of administrative services in revenue management at Geisinger Health System in Danville, PA.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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