Medphine supporting patient awareness campaign against Surprise Medical Bills

Medphine a leading provider of Revenue Cycle Services has closely witnessed the chain of events leading to today’s reimbursement scenario. There have been vital changes in the last few years –  developments such as CMS focused on implementing Value-Based Reimbursements, Narrowing networks and rising out-of-pocket cost after ACA, a large number of patients covered under employer-sponsored plans, the “Cadillac Tax” and with Health Saving Accounts. All this is leading the liability towards patients and their employers. There is no method to identify prior estimation of the cost of care so it’s not surprising that the patient today is more confused than ever about the surprise medical bills they receive.

Reetu Singh, CEO Medphine said, “Patient has to put up with complicated bills, ACA created coverage for a large uncovered population and this came with high deductible insurance plans. Today job-based health plans have almost four times high deductible than it was a decade ago and this increased cost is covering less as a result patients have high liability and out of pocket expense than ever before”

Unlike claims billed to insurance in a standard format, there is no standard format to report charges to patients. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hosted the Medical Bill Design Contest which seems like a step in the right direction to identify the best ways to report charges to the patient, but even after 3 years, the answer is yet to be found.

Patients want their care providers to design bills that are simple to understand and are consumer-friendly but instead they have to deal with bills filled with complicated and confusing information that requires conscious effort to figure out what’s what and many times they find it better to ignore instead trying. Patients know that ignoring a bill is not the solution but since bills are filled with technical jargon that is hard to decipher, surprisingly a whopping 40% of patients decide not to pay the bill at first to see if it would clear up with time. They receive another statement after which it turns into a marathon of calling insurance, care provider and billing department to figure out the relation between bills from provider and statements from the insurance – it’s indeed a frustrating and tormenting experience.

Medphine wants to share its knowledge on the subject, bridge the gap and create awareness about the taboo of surprise billing. We want to eliminate the surprise element out of this patient-provider-insurance-patient equation and help patients understand what they are being billed for? Patient Bills have been an integral part of our core RCM function and we want to put the authentic information out there and help guide patients to drive the right conclusion. Care providers often provide payment plans and patients can also try to negotiate the bill when it’s difficult to pay – Medphine is going to provide an avenue for patients to help them in the process and ease the burden of surprise bills.

Plans like “Cadillac Tax” has also added to the confused state of patients. Cadillac Tax was one of the most controversial elements of the Affordable Care Act which proposed adding 40% tax on the most generous employer-provided health insurance plans, it was suspected that employers would be reducing covered benefits to compensate and reduce the tax and thus it’s implementation has already been delayed a couple of times. Plans like this also add to the confused state of patients dealing with surprise bills however, in this case, there have been new developments and the government seems committed to repealing that part of ACA entirely.

Medphine.com is going to create awareness on such issues by rolling out a social media campaign starting this November. We will be sharing our knowledge with patients and help them understand their policy #knowyourpolicy #knowyourrights #knowyourinrsurance #konwyourcliam #knowyourbills #medicalbills

About Reetu Singh:
Reetu Singh, CEO and cofounder of Medphine is key derivative behind the company’s success. She has completed her Bachelers in Computer Science from Sutex Bank College and has attended several senior management programme from UCLA. She is passionate about bringing transparency in the healthcare system and focused on expanding all aspects of the business with a holistic approach towards the healthcare industry. She has a vision of providing seamless technology solutions & administrative services under one umbrella.

Reetu’s leadership has lead Medphine to achieve new milestones and Medphine stands among Top 10 RCM Companies for exhibiting exponential growth and having nurtured great culture for both internal and external clients, we are proud to be the most promising companies to work with.

About Medphine.com

Founded in 2013 Medphine works as a leading strategic outsourcing partner for healthcare providers including Hospital based Provider Groups, Independent Providers, FQHC, ACO, MSO, Rural Health Clinics, etc. to bring efficiency to their Revenue Cycle Operations through its expert Medical Coding and Billing services, and ancillary services from the front desk to the back office.