Written by Andrew Neal on Jan 22, 2024
Healthcare Automation Survival Guide
Automation has emerged as an important element in enhancing operational efficiency and patient satisfaction within enterprise-level healthcare organizations. But to effectively harness the benefits of automation, healthcare professionals should consider prioritizing the solutions that will best integrate into their existing workflows, processes, and systems.
Salucro’s Healthcare Provider Fintech Insights Report highlights the emergence of new technology in healthcare and how healthcare revenue cycle leaders expect to interact with it. With an intentional move towards more integrated, digital-first strategies among healthcare leaders, follow this survival guide to help effectively harness automation in healthcare.
Embracing Seamless Integration
The integration between Electronic Health Record (EHRs) systems and payment platforms is quickly becoming the backbone of efficiency and accuracy throughout major health systems in the United States. Seamless patient payment technology ensures data accuracy, real-time updates and notifications, and efficient workflows. These enhancements can help in saving time, reducing errors, and boosting overall operational efficiency.
New data shows that a significant 58% of healthcare professionals rate the integration of payment solutions into existing workflows (such as supported Cerner, Epic, and Meditech systems) as very or extremely important, emphasizing the need for systems that not only communicate with one another but do so with precision and speed.
Maintaining a Better Understanding of Patient Financial Preferences
Many of today’s patients expect the same quality experience from their healthcare provider that a digital consumer might have with any online merchant. They are looking for convenience, transparency, and a strong understanding of their financial choices.
According to the Fintech Insights report, 69% of healthcare professionals are most motivated by improving revenue when implementing a new solution, but this financial emphasis should not be viewed in isolation, but rather as a component of enhancing patient satisfaction and engagement. By better understanding patient preferences, and implementing automated solutions to simplify financial transactions, healthcare providers are improving both revenue metrics and patient satisfaction scores.
Understanding Automation vs. Augmentation
Automation implies that technology is replacing manual tasks, and there are many cases in revenue cycle technology where this is true. But more often these solutions are using augmentation, where technology is used to complement and collaborate with human input.
For example, consumer-friendly patient portals allow patients to manage their payments independently, with minimal administrative intervention. This helps to improve operational efficiency and plays a crucial role in the overall patient financial experience. Effective patient portals encourage self-pay payments amongst patients and better align with the modern patient’s expectations for convenience and accessibility.
Automated – and augmented – payment solutions allow an organization’s billing staff to redirect their focus from transactional activities to more complex billing issues, strategy, and patient communication. This can play a significant role in improving overall operational efficiency.
Promoting Patient Financial Engagement
Automation should be used to enhance patient engagement, not hinder it. Tools like personalized payment plans and automated reminders can transform patients into active participants in their healthcare journey. Reflecting a shift towards these services, 60% of healthcare organizations have embraced flexible payment options.
Offering patients personalized and adaptive payment schedules helps to streamline the payment process with minimal administrative oversight. These tools serve to enhance patient satisfaction by aligning with modern expectations for convenience and adaptability in financial interactions.
The rapid adoption of patient-centric services shows an understanding among health leaders that patient engagement extends beyond medical interactions to also include financial ones. Automated reminders and personalized payment plans are tools at the forefront, enhancing the patient experience by providing convenience and giving patients more control over their financial interactions with their provider.
Partnering with an Expert
Partnering with a patient payment technology vendor like Salucro that offers integrated patient financial engagement solutions can significantly ease the transition to a more automated, efficient healthcare revenue cycle. With 49% of healthcare providers poised to invest in new revenue cycle technology in the coming months, partnering with the right payments vendor can put healthcare providers a step ahead on the road towards modern, automated patient financial engagement solutions.
Download the 2024 Healthcare Provider Fintech Insights Report for more data and strategies designed to help healthcare providers not just survive healthcare automation but harness its potential to improve the lives of patients and the financial health of an organization.