Dive Brief:
-
Since redesigning patient billing statements several weeks ago, NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City has seen a 10% decrease in patient call volume, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.
-
Patient bills from NYU Langone feature a summary cover page with important information, contact information to connect patients with physician’s offices directly, and consumer-friendly explanations of charges and services delivered.
- This is not the first billing experiment conducted by NYU Langone. The academic medical center previously explored sending bills to patients before their scheduled appointment dates, according to Modern Healthcare.
Dive Insight:
Anyone who has ever been a patient knows that it can be difficult to understand a healthcare bill. The NYU Langone Medical Center has been tweaking its bills to make them more patient friendly and the results appear to have been positive so far.
More than a decade ago, NYU Langone began showing patients what their estimated costs would be before they arrived for their appointments. This is akin to showing prices on a menu for diners to consider, Debra Menaker, a director of revenue cycle operations, told Modern Healthcare in 2012, adding, “None of us like a menu with no prices. That makes people uncomfortable.”
It seems NYU Langone has continued to tweak the way it displays bills to patients. The bills it sends patients these days include a two-page statement that include consumer-friendly language for procedure descriptions, as well as a breakdown on what insurance has paid for versus what a patient owes in terms of a copay, deductible, or coinsurance costs.
Over the last several years, the government has launched initiatives to encourage providers to deliver bills for healthcare services in more patient-friendly language. For instance, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the “A Bill You Can Understand Contest” in May last year. Winners of that contest were announced in September.