Direct MobilePay: A New Patient Payment System Equals Greater Patient Satisfaction

There are many significant barriers to patient payments, such as lack of health insurance coverage or increasingly high-deductible health plans, going to see an out-of-network provider or social determinants of health and having to choose between getting care or paying for heat in the winter.

One impactful barrier that is less talked about is how healthcare organizations have created a payment system that adds friction to the patient bill-paying process. Even when patients can pay their bills, the provider offers a payment method that’s outdated. The billing issue here isn’t the inability to pay. It’s archaic methods that can create delays or, worse, have the bill forgotten about (and who wants to deal with patient collections)?!

Should a patient find their checkbook and a stamp and mail a payment? Do they need to call a support center to provide their credit card number over the phone? How about creating a portal account to make an online payment for the specialist care they will likely never visit again? Oh, and access to that portal probably requires a patient account number printed on the physically mailed statement that was thrown out weeks ago.

Do you enjoy a complicated billing process? Neither do patients. Let’s spell out their challenges:

Compare the above to the ease of buying anything from the comfort of the couch on a mobile phone. Navigating a portal or patient financing application can be a confusing process. A lot of information is required, such as proof of employment, gross income, household income, insurance information (if available), and more.

From there, many payment portals not only require an individual account to be created,but they also require applications to be downloaded on mobile devices or a desktop dashboard. Each of these steps often requires the use of multiple passwords or verification workflows.

That’s a lot of work to pay a primary care office or intimidating hospital bill. Each of these processes creates a difficult patient payment experience.  Especially for older patients or those with non-English speaking backgrounds.

The results of a poor payment portal user experience can be disastrous for healthcare providers. Increased friction in the payment process can lead to missed payments, decreased revenue for health systems, and increased patient frustration. In other words, the extra work inhibits patient responsibility (and even desire) to pay.

Fortunately, there’s a better payment option thanks to a growing movement to make patient payments easier.

Modernizing the Patient Payment Experience

The way patient payments are currently collected is either outdated or built on top of technology that was never designed for a streamlined bill pay process. All of the payment channels today are from a pre-iPhone world. What if health systems could start from scratch and design a collection channel with the patient in mind?

Direct Mobile Pay uses a dynamic new approach that relies on integrated text messages to bypass traditional workflows while maintaining a robust and rigorous data security environment. With Mobile Pay there’s no applications to download, no clunky identity verification process, just a streamlined path to satisfying their healthcare bill.

Imagine a payment experience that’s completed in one touch?

Patient payments are collected directly through links embedded in text messages. Once the link is clicked, the patient receives a notification of payment and receipt. There is no redirection to either a payment portal within a web browser, or to a mobile application. Instead, all payments are processed immediately through a single click.

Who wouldn’t want to pay their bill like this?

Rigid and Robust Patient Security

Direct Mobile Pay’s incredible convenience and usability is made possible through a robust series of security features that ensure user credentials and financial information are always kept safe and secured. Billing statements are delivered to a mobile device with full HIPAA compliance using 256-bit end-to-end encryption along with multiple backups and a highly tokenized payment process that replaces sensitive data with unique identification symbols. Data quality is maintained and protected.

Additionally, no information or data is ever stored on the patient’s phone. It’s also TCPA compliant by allowing any patient to opt-out of receiving text messages.

Easy for Patients. Easy for Financial Services Teams

No-risk adoption makes it easy for your team to deploy with zero to minimal training for your existing staff or patient base. Direct Mobile Pay easily integrates into existing customer service team’s workflows and operations. This is a one-stop solution for healthcare organizations, as no additional platforms or systems need to be bought or implemented.

Any patient with a mobile phone number will be able to seamlessly handle their payment responsibility. Direct Mobile Pay also sends convenient updates and notifications for their current billing statement, account balance, and more.

Patients don’t have to fumble for a checkbook. They don’t have to deal with their insurance company. They don’t need to fill out the usual billing information details. They can just tap and go – making patient responsibility easier than ever and in sync with the times. 

While all of that is all well and good, for healthcare organizations struggling to collect patient payments, results are what matters. Mobile Pay drives an immediate positive impact on patient payments on day one. 70% of payments are received within 7 days of notification, and 45% of patients reduced their total balances within the first 90 days.

AccessOne and Direct MobilePay

AccessOne, a leader in improving the access and availability of patient tools and patient financing options in the United States, recently acquired CueSquared’s Direct Mobile Pay. The goal was simple: to offer a modernized way for providers to optimize and simplify their payment collection efforts while providing a more intuitive and streamlined patient experience.

What’s more, is that all balances are made manageable. A large bill resulting from unforeseen emergency care is now easily handled with a simple tap. There’s no need to push low-income patients into an assistance program that creates shame and resistance, further complicating patient responsibility. Patients can create a payment plan that works for them, allowing them to take care of their balance with payment terms that make sense and are predictable.

We live in the age of online retail. It’s a basic expectation that payment options be made simple, whether it be a one-pay or payment plan model. Our one-touch payment model enables the kind of simplicity that any customer expects. This type of convenience created higher patient engagement resulting in streamlined revenue capture for you.   

Working with health systems to provide zero- and low-interest recourse financing to patients, AccessOne has helped to expand access to fair and flexible patient financing to underserved populations and demographics. By partnering with a mobile payment system proven to accelerate payments and reduce the cost to collect, AccessOne is situated to benefit both sides of the patient and provider financial relationship.