ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Elavon, a leading healthcare payments provider, looked deeper into the healthcare payments experience by interviewing hundreds of patients and healthcare information technology (HIT) executives across the U.S. Results of its two-part survey showed that while views align in many areas, including the need to make the overall patient payment experience better, views differ on innovations and how patients prefer to access healthcare information.
“It was interesting comparing the views and perceptions of patients and HIT executives,” said Jana Franks, SVP and GM, Healthcare Solutions. “We’ve known that finding ways to increase cost transparency is the biggest opportunity to improve the overall patient experience. The results confirm that and show us the runway for improvement is vast as new technologies emerge and are adopted by HIT executives and patients alike.”
Elavon’s report also found that nearly 30% of HIT companies do not have a payment solution integrated into their platform. This is a missed opportunity to increase revenue to enhance patient financial engagement. While there is innovation in other industries around adopting new payment technologies, the findings show that HIT companies can expand their payment capabilities through mobile intake tablets, kiosks, mobile wallets and IVR systems.
Franks added, “The study revealed that both consumers and HIT executives believe healthcare payments are the most difficult of all industries. Now is the time to change this by finding ways to simplify the process in an already hard to navigate industry. The survey showed us there is an appetite for innovations that increase payments digitization, which gives us a real opportunity to influence the future of healthcare transactions.”
Opportunities to innovate
- Only 31% of HIT executives feel healthcare is keeping pace with other industries in terms of payments innovation versus 80% of consumers.
- Patients want access to healthcare cost information online - 66% are registered on at least one provider portal to manage payments and billing and 67% would likely use an IVR to pay bills and obtain balance information.
- Only 34% of HIT executives surveyed indicated their companies offer mobile/tablet POS solutions for payments. This is a meaningful opportunity to further streamline the in-office payment experience for providers and their patients.
- Results show that 30% of HIT executives are incorporating AI into their platforms today, while 23% are using a cloud-based solution to support mobile wallets. AI has the potential to further improve payment security and reduce the risk of fraud, as well as deliver a more seamless and convenient payment experience for patients.
For its first Healthcare Payments Insight Survey Report, Elavon interviewed patients who had visited a medical provider and submitted payment to a medical provider within the 12 proceeding months. The HIT executive survey included respondents who are currently working in the healthcare industry, have been working in the healthcare industry for at least two years, and hold one of more of the following positions: president (C-level), vice president (SVP), director and manager.
To learn more about the research findings and request the full report:
- For HIT executives
- For healthcare providers
- For HIMSS19 attendees, visit the Elavon booth #473
About Elavon
Elavon, a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S.
Bancorp (NYSE: USB), provides end-to-end payment processing solutions
and services to more than 1.3 million customers in the United States,
Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. As the leading provider for
airlines and a top five provider in hospitality, healthcare, retail, and
public sector/education, Elavon’s innovative payment solutions are
designed to solve pain points for businesses from small to
enterprise-sized.