The importance of patient financial responsibility in healthcare—and its significance to hospital revenue models—is unlikely to decrease, and may become even greater. Read more about the true cost of patient payment collections. It’s vital for healthcare facilities to implement more successful methods of collecting on patient self-pay accounts. Consider these four best practices for improving patient collections.

The Federal Reserve, responsible for monitoring the health of the U.S. economy, publishes a series of studies every three years to discover trends in noncash payments across the country. These payments include credit cards, prepaid and non-prepaid debit cards, ACH and checks.

Due to the increase of patient financial responsibility, hospitals and health systems often experience difficulty collecting on those patient-pay accounts. In fact, most patient accounts are never paid in full. Research shows that 68 percent of patient bills under $500 are never paid, along with 86 percent of those between $500 and $1,000 and 99 percent of patient bills over $3,000.

Do you know your patients’ financial status as well as the physician knows their health status?