Patients, Payers, and Providers: Mobile Healthcare Payment Options Address Stakeholder Challenges

Nearly every player in the healthcare industry, including today’s patient/consumer, is under pressure to do more with less. Serve more patients in less time, for example, or provide higher quality customer services experiences with lower budgetary resources. In the area of payments—between and among providers, payers, and patients—the name of the game is maximizing the flow of payment transactions. Capitalizing off of consumer payment trends and tapping into emerging healthcare industry technologies, mobile payments provide a compelling solution. Let’s explore how they’re fitting into the payments mix today.

For Patients, Mobile Payments Skyrocket

The demand for mobile payment capability is well established. The simple truth is that consumers (most of whom are also healthcare consumers) are using their smart devices to make payments. Forrester predicts that overall mobile payments will grow at a 20.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2021. And Fiserv’s Eighth Annual Billing Household Survey, which provides insights on consumer billing and payment trends, found that:

• 33% of online households report having paid a monthly bill through their mobile phone—a 22% increase from last year
• 42% of smartphone owners report having paid bills via smartphone

In the increasingly retail healthcare environment, it makes sense that patients will soon expect to make payments—from insurance premiums to doctor’s office copays—from their phone. Does making a mobile payment mean paying with a contactless “tap” of a mobile wallet or initiating payment through a provider’s app? Consumer preferences will begin to emerge as more solutions become available, but to catch a glimpse of the possibilities, the Fiserv survey shows the volume of mobile bill payment transactions by mobile sub channel in the wider marketplace:

• Biller Mobile Site 33%
• Bank Mobile Site 27%
• Biller App 16%
• Bank App 14%
• Text 5%
• Other Provider App 5%

Data from the InstaMed Network gives insight into use of mobile in healthcare payments specifically. They found that payments from a mobile device have increased to 18% of all online payments in 2015—up from just 2% in 2011—and that 64% of consumers reported having interest in using a new mobile payment system such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay or Android Pay to make a healthcare payment.

For Payers and Providers, Collections are Key

Payers. Aside from making payments, payers are in the business to collect payments and remain profitable. They need to make it easy for policyholders to pay their premiums—using today’s digital tools, of course. In The Trends in Healthcare Payments Sixth Annual Report: 2015, healthcare payments network, InstaMed, examines the future of business for payers and its dependence on the role of consumers in healthcare.

Aside from consumerism, the InstaMed report points to enhancing data security, improving cash flow, and achieving more efficient operations as drivers of change. To be sure, insurance companies are focusing on a number of priorities aside from meeting customers’ needs: they need to maintain profitability and do their part to advance the tenants of healthcare reform. They have to build the technical and operational infrastructure to do so effectively, while keeping their internal processes within budget.

As discussed in 3 Reasons The Mobile Revolution Is Flourishing in Healthcare Payments and Healthcare Payors Go Digital, healthcare organizations are finding the best way to leverage both existing technology and investing in new digital solutions to gain operational efficiencies and better serve their customers.

Providers. Patients are assuming a larger share of the healthcare payments burden, thanks in large part to higher deductibles. With this increase in cost responsibility, providers need to get payments—and more of them—from patients. Yet InstaMed reports that providers can only expect to collect 50-70% of a balance after a patient visit and 70% of providers won’t collect from a patient for one month or longer.

Enabling mobile payments is one way to encourage patients to pay—or at least make it more convenient for them to do so at the time of check-out. What’s more, mobile technology is a very consumer-friendly way to communicate with patients and facilitate payment transactions via e-mail or text reminders that can be easily accessed from mobile devices, anytime and anywhere.

For more on provider payments, read Payment Possibilities: Healthcare Providers and the Chip-and-PIN Transaction.

Taking (and Making) Payments Mobile

Indeed, payers and providers have huge opportunities to improve consumer experience and satisfaction through the use of technologies patients are already using, but payers and providers are using the technology also, in other areas of their business. The white paper New Strategies for Health Care Industry Convergence from industry consultancy Fuld and Company shows that mobile technology is also helping patients, payers, and providers to manage healthcare—outside of the payments realm. For instance, mobile health (mHealth), which takes healthcare-related activities to mobile settings, and mobile apps that help with population management and keep costs under control, are both being used by payers and providers to empower consumers.

For more insights into consumer-driven healthcare, and enabling new behaviors with technology, see Consumers Still Need Simple Way to Manage Their Healthcare Dollars. And consider the myriad solutions being developed in the world of healthcare FinTech. Learn more in Fintech: Reinventing the Financial Services Industry.