When it comes to the medical industry—including vision—adoption of electronic or automated electronic payment systems is high, and we expect investment in this area to continue to increase over time. There's been a 12% increase in claim payment volume and a 22% increase in time to collect and conduct those transactions, as insurance companies have adopted electronic payments.
Understanding the industry trends helps us wrap our minds around where people are going today, and provides a foundation for understanding the reasons why you may want to adopt electronic payments.
Easing your administrative burden
Even in our personal lives, we regularly trade time for money; there’s value in convenience and time-saving. Processing insurance payments is no different. Automating payments and claims can reduce manual data entry and minimize the risk of human error.
In my experience visiting practices, I’ve seen vast amounts of paper stacked on desks and paper mail coming in, both of which are potential sources of daily data entry error that automation can help clean up.
Having payments in an electronic format offers enhanced visibility and access to real-time payment data and reporting. At Rectangle Health, we give you access to this data at your fingertips so you can post when needed. Reducing paper-based processes also allows practices to take more organized approaches towards posting and accounting incoming payments, and realize revenue faster to speed up cashflow.
We’ve seen many instances where the payment has already been sent but is sitting in a stack of papers waiting for someone to do something with it—something even more prone to happen when a mixture of paper- and electronic-based processes are used and things fall through the cracks.
Technology that consolidates payments into a single stream reduces administrative overhead and will ultimately save you time, make the lives of your staff easier, and reduce potential burnout.
Gaining peace of mind
Automation can also aid in navigating the variations in insurance company practices and formatting regarding payment and explanation of payment (EOP) documentation, that can trip up people relying on paper-based systems who have to constantly context-switch. Technology partners can make this much simpler. At Rectangle Health, we remove this burden when we process incoming documentation, by converting EOPs within our system into one standardized format.
Technology partners can also help with the review of claims using comprehensive review methodologies. For example, helping to automate the process of working with practice management systems or electronic medical records to post a claim correctly lets practice managers’ focus return to reviewing, finalizing, and posting claims to patients’ ledgers.
Electronic systems also come with security benefits. Ensuring patient-sensitive information is protected is crucial—having things in stacks on a desk isn’t a great practice for privacy or staying HIPAA-compliant. Instead, keeping everything behind a secure, password-protected system keeps this data safe; doing so in an encrypted manner gives you further peace of mind.
It’s important when assessing technology partners to look for those who take a multi-layered cybersecurity approach that evolves with industry standards—this is something we invest heavily in at Rectangle Health.
Speed and simplicity through straight-through processing
At Rectangle Health, we've been processing patient payments at the copay end of the patient journey for many years. If, when the patient has paid their copay and the insurance is paid, there's a remaining balance, we have many tools to collect those balances, which we then post back to the practice management system.
We've taken this same approach and applied it to every insurance payment across the patient journey. We now process not only the patient responsibility amount, but every amount from the payer that you want to move to the practice management system: the allowed amount, the write-off amount, the paid amount (on a line-by-line basis or at a claim level, we can post it either way). With straight-through processing, upon a single click, we get those insurance payments directly from payers, and process them straight into your bank account.
We’ve received a lot of positive feedback on straight-through processing because practices that partner with Rectangle Health value the benefits of being able to access all of their payments within one place. Eliminating manual processing speeds up things by up to 50%. Instead of waiting for payments to come in the mail, for somebody to open it and then have to find the time to work through the stack of papers that it’s in, as the payer sends payments to us, we process them right away. This means that they’re waiting for you in the system for when you’re ready to post with reduced errors, using one-click posting.
Our automatic processing happens regardless of the volume of payments payers send to us—whether it’s 10 or 1,000 payments—and the time-saving a practice can experience really adds up as the volume of payment increases. Once we’ve received them, they’ll already be within your system and on their way to your bank account.
For practices, this really means that once the payment reaches them, much of the workload is significantly reduced. We automate the last mile of the journey, streamlining the process so you can focus on what matters most without unnecessary worries.
Maximize your revenue and streamline your workflows with Rectangle Health's straight-through processing. See how much time and money you can save. Request a demo today at Rectanglehealth.com.
