How to Increase Co-Pay Collections in 2 Easy Steps

By Blakely Roth | July 31, 2024

Depending on your approach, collecting accurate and timely co-pay collections can be more challenging than they should be. If there’s a better way—one that will drive consistency—it’s time to try it. By improving co-pay determination and leveraging digital collection methods at the point-of-service, your practice can see 100% co-pay collection rates. Here’s how to increase co-pay collections and other patient balances in two easy steps. 

Step 1: Enhance Co-Pay Determination for Improved Accuracy

Use Multi-Factor Eligibility™ to Accurately Determine Patient Co-Pays 

First and foremost, a multi-factor eligibility verification solution is essential. Unlike the standard automation in your practice management system (PMS) a robust multi-factor eligibility tool offers unique benefits: 

• Frequent Eligibility Checks: Verifies insurance at every critical patient interaction to ensure coverage has not lapsed. It checks eligibility up to seven times before patient appointments, ensuring the most accurate data. 

• Fee-Free, Automated Checks: Performs these checks without requiring staff intervention or additional fees, saving time and reducing workloads and costs. 

• Dashboard Alerts: Provides a control center for staff that alerts them to discrepancies via an all-patient dashboard, enabling faster resolution and improved efficiency. 

• Automated Mapping of Co-Pays: Automatically maps payers to appointment types, matching and inputting the correct co-pay amount to patient accounts without staff intervention, thus reducing manual errors and the need for refunds or future collection efforts. As a result, practices see immediate improvements to co-pay collection and no longer need to register at payer sites or send staff to call on patients or payers.   

Improving the way your practice determines patient balances owed during registration can help your practice in more ways than one. Here are four additional benefits.

Saves Staff Time

Nick Tavares, CEO of Metrolina Eye Associates, explains how automated, Multi-Factor Eligibility™ verification saves time and money for their practice. Watch the full webinar conversation, Give Your Staff Super Powers With Patient Self-Service. 

Improves Accuracy

By adopting a multi-factor eligibility solution, practices can see immediate improvements in co-pay collection accuracy. No longer will staff need to manually confirm eligibility on a patient-by-patient basis or register at payer sites. In a conversation on, “Show Me the Money: Tips for Getting Your Practice Paid,” Kristal Niblett, Billing Manager, Annapolis Neurology Associates, shares the time-consuming challenges their staff initially faced around eligibility verification.  

Reduce Refunds and Credits 

With the most accurate eligibility engine on the market, your practice will significantly reduce the challenges associated with collecting too little, too much, or, worse, not collecting at all at check-in. This accuracy ensures that patients are billed correctly the first time, minimizing the need for adjustments and enhancing overall financial health. 

Quickly Determine Vision Co-Pays 

For ophthalmology practices, use a multi-factor eligibility solution to quickly determine whether to collect from the vision co-pay versus medical co-pay in real-time. This streamlined process aids in faster and more efficient collections and reimbursements. 

Step 2: Collect Digitally at the Point-of-Service

Point-of-service collection in a healthcare setting can make or break your bank! To increase co-pay collection, use patient check-in as your guaranteed source for collecting patient payments. Here’s how to make it happen! 

Implement Digital Check-In Solutions: Implementing digital check-in solutions such as kiosks or mobile phones that allow patients to make payments privately and digitally. This method reduces the need for staff intervention in the collection process, which in turn reduces the risk of missed payments due to staff forgetting or being too busy. Digital check-in solutions also offer unique payment options like card-on-file, enabling you to collect patient card-on-file information and consent for streamlined future payments.  

Present Patient Balances and Collect at Every Check-In: During registration, automatically present the most accurate co-pay to patients, using step one. Then use a digital solution to ask and collect payment at each check-in, which removes payment collection responsibilities from staff. Use this approach to not only present co-past but also other patient balances for collections, like past-due and estimates. 

Use Multiple Modalities: Don’t limit your digital check-in options to just tablets or phones. Patient check-in kiosks specifically provide a user-friendly option that patients are accustomed to using in various settings like grocery stores, airports and fast-food restaurants. Kiosks require no staff intervention and are accessible to all age demographics. See how one practice drives nearly 100% co-pay collection rates at the point-of-service with the help of kiosks.

Improve Your Patients’ Healthcare Payment Experience

By enhancing the accuracy of co-pay determinations and leveraging digital collection methods, your practice can create a better healthcare payment experience for your patients and staff. Patients appreciate the convenience and privacy of digital payments, and your practice benefits from increased efficiency and reduced administrative burdens.  

Implementing these two steps—enhancing co-pay determination accuracy and collecting digitally at the point-of-service—will significantly improve your practice’s co-pay and other patient balance collections. By following these steps, your specialty healthcare practice can achieve more efficient, accurate and patient-friendly co-pay collections, setting you up for long-term financial success. 

Want to further improve profitability at your practice? See the 3 ways physicians are losing money right now and how to avoid these obstacles.