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BUSINESS ADVISOR
benefits as they attempt to budget their healthcare spending during
open enrollment.
Cost-conscious catering
All this means your facility needs to focus more on the pricing of the
care you provide. Here are 3 steps you can take to cater to the costconscious.
1. Be flexible. Provide options for patients to cover costs, including
discounts for paying cash, accepting all credit cards and developing
flexible payment plans, including contracting with a third-party payment plan provider.
2. Become cost-transparent. Although it's standard to inform patients
of their financial responsibility before the day of surgery so the facility
collects what it's owed, you can no longer wait until the day before a
scheduled case to provide this information. With 4-figure amounts
often due the morning of surgery, patients need more time to plan
financially and to carefully explore different payment options.
Allowing this lead time will help reduce sticker-shock cancellations
for patients unable to cover the cost of their procedures on short
notice.
You might also consider publishing estimated procedure costs on
your website. A facility that provides these figures will appear honest
and eager to help plan care, to patient-consumers who are accustomed to using the Internet to price everything else they buy.
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | J A N U A R Y 2013
