As patients become consumers and financial transparency becomes key, practice administrators like Kellie Ickowski at Audubon Women’s Medical Associates understand the growing necessity to collect from patients up front. “No one goes to the grocery store, buys a gallon of milk, and then gets a bill to pay for it 2 months later,” said Ickowski. “It would be a lose-lose for the business and their customers.”
“Not only is it a better patient experience with transparent pricing, but it makes a huge difference in our patient A/R as well.”
Located in Buffalo, Audubon Women’s Medical Associates is New York’s largest private group of physicians and nurse practitioners specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. For over 25 years, they have provided healthcare for tens of thousands of women and delivered more than 15,000 babies. “Our patients like to know what they owe ahead of time and there are no surprises when we collect it from them,” said Ickowski. “Not only is it a better patient experience with transparent pricing, but it makes a huge difference in our patient A/R as well.” With this goal of transparency in mind, Ickowski and her team partnered with Rivet to provide accurate estimates for up-front collections.
Prior to working with Rivet, the team at Audubon would login to each individual payer portals or websites or sit on the phone to gather the information, then manually calculate the patient estimates and notify them. Not surprisingly, this strategy resulted in varying levels of accuracy and the manual effort took hours in man power. “With changing coverages, deductibles, and eligibility, it can be hard to produce truly accurate estimates at scale,” said Ickowski. “However, with Rivet, running eligibility and estimates it’s a quick, one-stop shop.”
“We see cost savings in the time spent to create the estimate and in less patient A/R days."
Audubon has now realized their vision of effectively collecting from their patients up front as a result of their partnership with Rivet. “Rivet helps us a lot with capturing patient costs,” said Ickowski. “We see cost savings in the time spent to create the estimate and in less patient A/R days.” As an added bonus, Ickowski also values the strength of Rivet’s customer support, “With how quickly Rivet responds on chats, calls, or emails, we feel like their team is right in our office.”
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