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In 2017 $38 BILLION was spent on uncompensated care by hospitals (AHA Annual Survey Data). It’s also estimated that approximately $20 BILLION could be RECOVERED through financial assistance programs.
So, why hasn’t this problem been solved already? Why aren’t self-pay patients being matched with programs that provide coverage? The answer: Eligibility Screening (ES), especially for the most-vulnerable, self-pay patients, is ever-increasing in complexity and scope at a time when hospital financial counselors are already stretched to the breaking point.
ES is Ripe for Technology Disruption for Three Reasons
Hospital financial and revenue cycle teams must find ways to leverage their limited staffs of financial counselors in the face of a growing volume of self-pay patients
We live in an age where nearly all patients (all ages, demographic and socioeconomic factors) possess smartphone technology
Government and charity programs have not seen the same advances in health-tech (e.g. EHR) as the private sector and continue to operate in a form-based world, disconnected from the efficiencies afforded by healthcare technologies
The Path Forward
You may have heard the term, “Everything-as-a-Service”? If not, no worries, it simply means that in a world where hyper-focused or “niche” technologies continue to emerge, the value of those technologies can only be fully-realized when the appropriate complementary “services” are bundled with their delivery. In short, people - hospital staff, patients… everyone - need help dealing with fantastic new technologies that make life easier in the long-run, but painful in the short run. For hospitals, this means not having staff bandwidth to on-board new solutions. For patients, it’s the complexities of the benefits screening process and terminology. So you see, it’s not just about finding a benefits eligibility screening platform, but rather finding the ES-as-a-Service partner to implement it with. The ES organization becomes a leveraged partner to the hospital and a front-line “concierge” for the patient.
Advocatia Solutions (advocatia.io) provides hospitals with a platform to assist their uninsured and under-insured patients. Advocatia helps your financial counselors streamline the financial assistance process by providing an optimized workflow to assist patients find coverage when they need it most. Hospitals that partner with Advocatia increase reimbursements, decrease bad-debt, and improve the patient and associate experience.
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