San Francisco, CA, USA
October 25, 2007 Healthcare
Providers' Payment
Practices and Expectations:
A Survey
Report Published by Celent
Financial institutions serving healthcare providers
should experience a growing demand for cash management services that
electronify providers’ revenue cycle management process, according to
the results of a recent Celent survey.
Healthcare providers, due to their unique needs and
pain points, are a lucrative growth area for cash management service
providers. In a new report, Healthcare Providers’ Payment Practices
and Expectations: A Survey, Celent analyzes the results of a survey
used to generate the Metavante Payment Progress Index - Healthcare
Edition. Celent’s findings include:
- Respondents are optimistic regarding the shift
away from paper-based payments toward electronic payment types. They
expect payers’ use of checks to drop from 54% to 40% of total
payments within two years.
- Coincident with the rise in consumer-directed
healthcare initiatives, providers anticipate the proportion of
payments from patients to rise from 16% to 21%.
- Providers have moved faster toward EDI for claims
than for remittances, with 96% able to send an electronic claim,
whether directly or through a third party, compared to 76% able to
receive an e-remittance for direct posting to their patient management
system.
- Providers are planning to invest in systems that
will allow them to receive a greater number of electronic remittance
advices (ERAs) for direct posting to their patient management systems.
Already a majority of respondents (76%) state that they are able to
receive ERAs, a figure that is expected to rise to 93% by 2009.
Although a large proportion of providers claim the ability to receive
ERAs, 69% of these providers are also receiving these same remittance
transactions in paper form, which leads to the conclusion that they
are still distributing paper remittances for, at minimum, to manually
manage exceptions processing or, at maximum, to manually post
payments.
- ERAs generated the greatest improvements in
transaction processing, with 46% respondents giving them a “high
degree of improvement” grade. Lockbox came in second, earning a “high”
from 35% of respondents.
“Although providers are not undertaking
major projects, they are incrementally electronifying their transaction
handling processes, generating numerous opportunities for financial
institutions to expand their cash management services. Based on survey
findings and interviews, we expect growth in healthcare-related EDI,
extended lockbox, and remote deposit capture services to be relatively
strong compared to other verticals. Growth, however, will only come with a
compelling value proposition and cost/benefit equation. Providers’
moderate satisfaction levels with the status quo suggest that there is
inertia,” comments Alenka Grealish,
author of the report and Managing Director of Celent’s Banking Group.
This 22-page report contains 15 figures and
3 tables.
A table of
contents is available online.
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