Every healthcare executive is familiar with the term revenue cycle management (RCM), but surprisingly few know what patient financial management (PFM) is. That is truly unfortunate because patient financial management is a system of revenue planning grounded in transparency and preparation that has been proven to convert nearly all unrecoverable patient financial responsibility. PFM companies like FinPay have demonstrated time and time again that their innovative pre-care patient engagement strategies work. 

It is almost 2020, which means a new cycle of patient delinquency for most health care organizations. As the calendar resets, so too do the health plans of most U.S. households, leaving them with an enormous financial responsibility—their annual health plan deductible. For many families, this deductible makes medical care financially unviable and forces them to delay or completely forego making payments to providers or seeking care at all.

According to a study in the Annals of Family Medicine, the average amount of time that a doctor spent on an individual patient visit was 17.5 minutes. That leaves a lot of time to form an impression of a practice. 

Optimal patient health is the collective goal of the healthcare industry, but in order to provide high-quality care that keeps patients healthy, providers need to be fiscally healthy themselves. Good patient financial management is a crucial part of this health: Keeping revenue high while strong patient relationships.

It is a tragedy when an important healthcare facility serving a needy community has to shut its doors and place the lives of those it serves at risk. Unfortunately, continuing financial losses are forcing the closure of Hahnemann University Hospital, one of the nation’s most historic medical facilities. Hahnemann Hospital, which primarily serves some of the poorest residents of Philadelphia, might have avoided this unhappy outcome if it had implemented a patient financial management program that optimized pre-care patient intervention to strengthen revenue.