continued from HFMA Visions, Issue 2
It may come as a surprise to the general public, but a little known fact is that millions of patients are automatically identified and enrolled in hospital sponsored charity care programs nationwide. It is unlikely that your patients understand much about a hospital’s generosity, let alone the technologies that automate its community benefit programs. These charity care systems enable hospitals to execute their community benefit programs more effectively, providing medical services free of charge or at a significantly reduced rate to qualified patients – amounting to billions in savings annually to U.S. consumers. This practice is at the core of the mission of our nation’s not-for-profit healthcare networks.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult and time consuming to manually identify all qualified patients and efficiently enroll them in a hospital’s charity care program. Doing so without automation is wrought with errors and inconsistencies, so many hospitals have taken a new approach for improved accuracy and consistency.
These systems have greatly impacted the lives of millions of patients and their families over the years who otherwise may not have received charity care. The following are excerpts from actual thank you notes from hospitals and patients who have seen the benefits of these systems first-hand:
‘Our automated charity care screening system approved two patients yesterday-one's wife shed tears of gratitude. We were also able to approve another just now, a child whose father lost his regular job recently, and is now making $9 per hour. This is a wonderful service that we are providing. The staff feels good and the patients are truly grateful that the financial stress has been lifted and they can focus on their health.’
Automation = More Charity Benefits for your Patients
Since 2001, it is estimated that more than five million low income patients been enrolled in charity care programs through automated solutions from third party providers.
These solutions rapidly identify patients who meet the criteria for a hospital’s charity care program, Medicaid or other financial assistance programs. Using data from third party service provider ensures that each patient’s need is assessed on their financial need, eliminating factors such as age, race, gender, etc. from the process.
More and more hospitals are having these systems routinely check all incoming patients to see whether or not they are qualified for their community benefit program. This ensures that all qualified patients are identified and eliminates any bias.
Automated qualification and enrollment processes connect patients with the programs that were designed to help them. This process saves the patients money, but just as importantly, it preserves their dignity by eliminating concentrated collection efforts.
Saving Time and Money for Patients and Hospitals
Hospitals need to reduce costs across their organizations, but wish to do so without negatively impacting their services or the patient’s satisfaction. Third party charity care solutions are one of very few methods that offer a win-win scenario for the hospital and the patient alike by:
Reducing Enrollment Time: Automating this step reduces the enrollment process to just minutes, instead of the hour or more needed to manually process an application -- saving a hospital’s financial counselors hours of time spent on paperwork. Likewise, patients find out immediately whether or not they qualify, eliminating added stress from their medical situation.
Improving Compliance with Government Regulations: Hospitals need to demonstrate their commitment to serving their communities. Charity care solutions provide the results and reporting needed to comply with the IRS’ 990 Form Schedule H and other state and local requirements.
Stopping Unproductive Collection Efforts: Hospitals can save on their collection processes by eliminating any collection activities on patient accounts that qualify for charity care. Its efforts can be better focused on those who have the ability to pay. In addition, patients enrolled in charity care programs eliminate the anxiety often caused by collection efforts on hospital bills that they are truly unable to pay.
Curing a Nation’s Misperception
Hospitals have been wrongly portrayed as organizations focused more on money than care. Those of us in the healthcare industry know that this is just not true. How can we prove that we are living up to our mission? The clearest answer is by demonstrating community benefit.
Unfortunately healthcare networks are often unable to publicly demonstrate their mission of serving their communities. Manual and inconsistent qualification and enrollment processes offer varied results that are often understate their level of generosity.
Using automated charity care solutions, healthcare networks can provide reliable statistics showing their community benefit through the number of patients they have aided, both medically and financially, and the cost of these services absorbed by the healthcare network within their charity care program. Positive public relations are critical to every hospital.
Today’s public is mostly unaware of the healthcare industry’s generosity to those in need through their unique charity care programs. To address this issue, smart hospitals are implementing strict processes and technologies to enroll all quailed patients and use this information to show their communities their commitment to their mission.
Automating charity care programs is good for the patient, the hospital, and our nation. Thank you notes from patients and hospital staff are just the tip of the iceberg of the appreciation and impact of these systems. |