Although the U.S. healthcare system is lauded for providing the best, most advanced care in the world, when it comes to the payments practices being used with much of that industry, honorable mention might be a more fitting rank.
This, despite the fact that consumers are not only accustomed to modern, seamless payments in almost every aspect of their lives, but studies show 1 in 4 patients say they’d switch to another provider or doctor that offered more payment options and a better patient experience. The prescription for the patient experience malaise?
“If I were addressing doctors about this issue, I’d tell them they’re already late,” Rectangle Health CEO Dominick Colabella said in a conversation with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster. “But it’s time to get on an active treatment plan. And the active treatment plan is the digitization of payments and card on file by now. And I’d tell them it’s not as bad as they think. I know, Day One of shifting behavior is very difficult, but by Day 30, they will see it’s not so hard. It’s like getting on the treadmill every day. The first day is the hardest, right? So. it’s just getting out there and doing it. And once they’re doing it, it becomes common practice.”
Colabella noted that the healthcare field lacks payment options, yet the consumer experience is loaded with them from buy now, pay later (BNPL) to credit cards to PayPal. Healthcare needs those options, he said.
And while adjusting to any kind of change is difficult — especially in a busy doctor’s office — Colabella said the costs of not converting to modern payments processing can be ruinous, given the increasing willingness of patients to walk away from an existing medical relationship.
“If you lose a transaction, which is that patient’s procedure and the following procedures and the referrals from other patients and their procedures, it’s an exponential degradation of the growth of your business,” Colabella said.
You Got This, Doc
Colabella said Rectangle spends each and every day convincing medical practices that the perceived costs, disruptions and complexities involved in incorporating a modern, digital payments platform aren’t nearly as ominous as they might fear.
“If a little eBay store, so to speak, can facilitate online payment easily, the dental practice in town or the orthopedic practice in town has the same ability. They have the same tools,” he said, noting that the payments industry has shown along the way that all these things can be done easily and with little or no cost.
It’s really just a matter of educating them on how to do this and make it a great user experience that helps the patient and streamlines the practice, enabling it to focus on what’s most important, he said. As far as filling out forms and entering information, studies have shown patients have no problem doing so as long as they trust the business they’re giving it to.
“You’re putting in your driver’s license information,” he said. “You’re putting in your insurance information. Consumers are comfortable about putting in their credit card information. We all do it. Everybody pays online for everything. The differentiator in healthcare is how the practices need to set it up to get everybody to feel comfortable.”
Patients Feel Safer In A Restaurant
A December survey by PYMNTS showed that 45 percent of patients said they’d rather wait until the coast was clear with COVID-19 before seeking even routine medical services from their doctors.
Colabella said as he sees it, it’s all part of the general discomfort that people are feeling about their visits to the doctor.
“Patients are scared.,” he said. “They think if they’re going to go into a hospital environment, they’re automatically going to contract COVID, so there is a tremendous fear there, and [patients] have to get more comfortable around that.”
At the same time, he said the medical community needs to do a lot more than it currently is to boost patient confidence. Compared to restaurants, which he said conspicuously wipe down tables, put up plexiglass barriers and make a big deal out of all the pandemic-era safety changes they’ve adopted, many medical practices are not doing much to put people at ease.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “People feel safe going to a restaurant, but they don’t feel safe going to an emergency department, so that really needs to shift.”
Do Like Uber
If you think filling out redundant forms on a clipboard, and then having someone take that info and re-enter it into the system feels a little less than optimal, you’re not alone. In fact, PYMNTS found that 43 percent of consumers said they’d be OK with storing their credentials and card on file to avoid having to key them in online.
“It has to be an Uber-like experience where — as you’re walking out — you see the little pop on your phone [saying] you just paid $50 for your copay,” he said.
While getting to that level of seamlessness in healthcare will likely take years, Colabella said the time to get started is now, especially for older or smaller sole-practitioners that are facing increasing competition.
“The older practices that don’t have all the technology that are just used to their way of doing things, yes, they are under attack from somebody new coming in that has a bigger footprint,” he said, noting that consumers’ preference for one-stop-shopping doesn’t end at the supermarket.
“The ease and simplicity of payments,” he said, “is actually a very small lift to get over that hump and transition a healthcare practice.”
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February 01, 2021 at 04:01PM
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