The COVID-19 crisis has upended many of our traditional business procedures and processes. However, because digital transformations were well underway before the pandemic, the shift to remote work and contactless consumer self-service was swift. In healthcare, digital strategies that were expected to take 10 years to accomplish may now be compressed into three. That acceleration is especially evident with the “digital front door” – a strategy for engaging patients at every major touchpoint of the care journey using self-service technology they have already adopted for everyday use.
The need to offer consumers more self-service capabilities, including finding a doctor, scheduling an appointment, and paying a bill is well understood. Yet, as Harvard Business Review reported, “Many health systems nominally offer these capabilities now through patient portals with often opaque user interfaces and erratic performance.” To be effective, the digital front door needs to be viewed more broadly than making individual transactions easier. The digital front door should be viewed as the storefront to a health system’s digital marketplace. Consider how people plan travel. Consumers use a marketplace, such as Expedia, to research a destination, consider travel mode and lodging options, and assess associated costs – all before booking anything. Consumers want to be able to shop for healthcare services in a similar fashion and make a fully informed choice before booking an appointment.
However, this level of transparency and consumer control remains a challenge. Patient financial responsibility is often hidden within the complex arrangements among healthcare providers, health plans, and government agencies. Even for professional revenue cycle staff, it can be difficult to efficiently ascertain a patient’s estimated out-of-pocket cost, based on eligibility, network participation, benefits, or co-insurance, let alone communicate that information clearly to the patient. While new Price Transparency regulations are well-intentioned, anyone familiar with chargemasters understands how difficult it would be for consumers to use them as decision-making tools. What’s more, from the health system’s perspective, booking resources before the patient is financially cleared can lead to cancellations and last-minute reschedule that leave costly resources idle and may result in payment denials.
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Source: Hitconsultant