Patient statement services help healthcare providers collect outstanding dues from patients. These statements are easy to understand and have all the necessary details like the patient’s payment history and balance amount. 

All healthcare practices, clinics, and hospitals print and mail statements to their patients regularly. These tasks allow them to keep their revenue cycle flowing without any payment delays.

It is not enough to print plain statements with some words and numbers and send them to patients. Statements should look professional and elegant. At the same time, include a clear call to action asking people to complete payments.

If you don’t follow up with your patients and send them statements on time, they might never pay you. To avoid such situations, use patient statement services to help you create, print, and send your statements in a timely manner, thus avoiding any delays.

These services help you reduce the amount of time between sending statements and receiving payments. They enable you to print eye-catching and custom patient statements that drive people to pay fast.

Though e-statements are popularly used these days, paper statements can help you make a better impression grab the attention of your patients and retain your patients. Also, physical mail increases brand awareness and improves its reputation.

Keep reading this blog to know more about patient statements and how patient statement vendors can help streamline your print and mail activities.

Patient statements are a form of medical bills that have all the details of the patients including their name, medical history, and the services received by them.

All statements contain the charges corresponding to these services and the total due payment. They also have the patient’s demographic details, the doctor’s name, and the dates when the patients were admitted or given consultation.

These statements are printed and mailed to patients for reference so that they can make the payment accordingly.

You can send paper statements electronic statements, or both. Please choose a service provider like PostGrid that helps you store your sent statements so that you can also email them to your patients.

As medical practices are busy with a hundred other things, outsourcing medical statement printing and mailing is advisable. PostGrid’s automated print and mail API cuts down on administrative costs, reduces manual processing, and helps you collect your dues more effectively.

 Also Read: How to Build an Effective Patient Communication?

Things to Consider While Printing and Mailing Patient Statements

Secure Your Billing Process

All your patient statements must be drafted, printed, and mailed securely. Make sure that your healthcare practice management software is HIPAA compliant and protects the confidentiality of these documents.

Always choose patient statement printing and mailing services that can help you send statements confidently and increase your brand credibility.

Make Your Statements Patient-Friendly

Always put your patients first and draft statements that are understandable to them. Avoid using any unnecessary medical jargon and replace it with simple terms.

Patients must be able to access their personal information and see the outstanding dues on your online payment portal. Try adding the relevant link to the portal on all your statements. If possible, use QR codes in mails that can take patients to their online accounts when scanned.

Don’t forget to mention their insurance claims and the amount paid by the insurance company.

In short, include everything in your statements that the patients need to know. It will help them understand everything by themselves and not contact your customer service frequently.

List Various Payment Options

Make it easy for patients to settle their accounts. The more payment options you provide, the faster you can get paid.

Never restrict your patients to only one payment mode. Instead, offer them a little flexibility by providing several options for offline and online payments.

Patients should be able to pay in any form they wish. List online options like making credit card payments or paying via Internet banking. At the same time, also allow them to pay at the counter if they want to.

Brand Your Statements

It is not enough to send out patient statements that are easy to read. They should also indicate the name of the organization they are coming from.

If your statements do not have your brand name, logo, and contact details, it might confuse your patients. So, always brand your statements properly.

Incorporate Offline and Online Modes of Sending Patient Statements

65% of US customers prefer getting their bills online as well as offline. Hence, as said above, send statements via both channels.

You can first print and mail offline statements to your patients’ physical mailing addresses. Then, email them their electronic patient statements for reference. You can also use the email option as a means to follow up on the dues.

If you are sending electronic patient statements, include the payment links. So, they can just click on the link that directs them toward the payment portal.

While sending printed statements, make sure to shorten your payment links. If you send offline statements with long links, your patients may forego the effort of typing the entire link to complete the payment. This can delay your payments by a significant amount of time.

 Also Read: Transactional Printing and Mailing Companies and Services

Why Should You Outsource Patient Statement Printing and Mailing Services?

Technology has made it easy for medical institutions to save time and money on billing, scheduling, and patient payment collections. You can now outsource most of your administrative tasks and spend time on important and billable work.

The same goes for patient statement mailing. Outsourcing the entire process of printing and mailing statements can help you:

Accurate Billing

Spelling errors and typos are common mistakes that take place when you draft statements manually. But, a print and mail API like PostGrid can help you integrate with your CRM and draft statements electronically.

It leaves no room for errors and also does your work in less than half the time. Also, outsourcing these activities can boost your brand productivity and help your employees focus on other profitable tasks.

Cut Down Third-Party Collection Expenses

Collection agencies come into the picture when patients either refuse to make the payment or delay it for too long. Hiring such an agency costs a lot, but sometimes it is worth it—they help you reduce bad debts and keep your revenue cycle flowing.

However, there’s another way to avoid bad debts rather than paying a collection agency. You can outsource your dental patient statements printing and mailing process.

Online print and mail services like PostGrid help you connect with your patients directly and push them to complete their payments. Mention the patient balance clearly along with a strong CTA to encourage patients to act right away.

On-Time Patient Statement Mailing

Often, you may get caught up in other tasks and forget to print statements on time. Alternatively, it is possible that you may not have the time to track your mailed statements.

These jobs seem too ordinary to be missed, but they are time-consuming. Also, medical clinics and hospitals need to do these tasks almost every day making it difficult to keep track of everything.

But, if you outsource statement printing and mailing, things can change. You can save time and also get your statements delivered to the patients on time. It will ensure that there are no unnecessary delays from your side.

Improve Patient Experience and Satisfaction

All your patients might not be able to pay their dues the moment they receive the statement. Therefore, you should mail out statements in advance that give people some time to pay.

By outsourcing the print and mail of a patient statement in medical billing, you need not worry about the time frame. PostGrid can print your statements in high quality and get them mailed within 2 days.

Such small things as printing eye-catching statements and giving adequate time for patients to pay can help you retain patients.

Now that you know outsourcing print and mail jobs is cost-effective and efficient, you need to find a vendor that can tend to your needs. You may find yourself confused between two or more two service providers.

Though the cost and turnaround time are the first two things you will look for, there are some other points you should consider:

Statement Personalization

Since no two statements are the same, this is one of the most important features to look for. Your vendor should offer variable data printing to help you print personalized statements.

Outsourcing can lead to you losing control over some tasks, but it does not mean that your statements look completely different from what you expected.

You should be able to choose from among different statement templates. Then, customize them as per your brand’s requirements. Your patient statements must represent your brand. Hence, make sure that all the statements have your brand logo and other details.

If you send plain, black, and white statements to your patients, they might not recognize your brand. Furthermore, they might treat your mail as unimportant and toss it away.

To avoid such things, make yourself known in your statements by custom printing. For added security, ask your vendor to print your brand watermark on every statement. PostGrid can help you print highly appealing statements that stand out from the crowd.

Real-Time Statement Tracking

Your work does not end with printing and mailing patient statements. These statements should also reach the patients on time. Moreover, you should know the status of your statements at all times.

Therefore, select a print and mail vendor that offers real-time tracking. It allows you to stay updated and also predict the delivery date so that you can follow up accordingly.

To track your mail items, you need to attach Intelligent Mail Barcodes (IMBs) to them. They are 65-bar barcodes used to sort and track domestic mail.

Inquire whether your vendor can print these barcodes on your statements. Our print and mail API can print IMBs, add ZIP+4 codes, and presort your mail—to help you get additional mailing discounts and also mail more efficiently.

PostGrid helps you track your financial statements right from your dashboard. You don’t need to call up the USPS office or track anything on their website. Just log into your account on PostGrid and access the status reports.

Address Correction and Validation

There might be some times when patients enter incorrect addresses on their medical forms. Some possibilities are:

• Patients might move to another location making the address in your database obsolete.
• The mailing address written on the form is invalid and the USPS cannot deliver mail to it.
• There is no ZIP code written in the address, making it hard to narrow down the patient’s location.

These might sound like very small errors, but they can lead to huge losses for your organization.

Firstly, you may end up paying for printing and mailing statements that are either misplaced or returned to you. In addition to that, such delivery delays and other issues can delay your payments as well.

Hence, you need a robust address correction system that can avoid such things and help you mail accurately.

Your first option is to instruct your employees to call up every patient and confirm their addresses. But, with thousands of patients to deal with, this task is pretty hectic and time-consuming. Also, it can add up to your administrative costs.

Not all print and mail vendors can help you verify your mailing addresses. Rather, they might ask you to send them an updated mailing list so that they can continue to send out your statements.

However, PostGrid offers free address validation with its print and mail services. It allows you to filter out incorrect addresses and make the necessary modifications. Not just that, our address verification API can do a lot more things like:

• Cross-checking your mailing addresses against the National Change of Address (NCOA) data file. This helps you know if any of your patients have moved. It lets you access their new postal addresses.
• Standardizing addresses in the correct address format. It helps the USPS sorting machines read the addresses correctly and allow the workers to deliver your mail to the correct addresses.

Marketing and Other Inserts

Along with patient statements, you can also add marketing inserts to your envelopes. This helps you send the statement to your patients along with advertising your brand.

Medical organizations can save money by mailing two things in the same envelope. Just take care that your envelope does not get too heavy and lead to an increase in your postage.

You can send marketing postcards or letters with general marketing messages. Also, you can send appointment reminders, event invitations, and discount details.

Either way, such inserts allow you to talk to your patients personally. They also help you retain patients by staying in constant touch.

A lot of clinics and hospitals attach Evidence of Healthcare Coverage (EOC) and Explanation of Benefits (EOB) with their patient statements. These documents provide a breakdown of the patient’s medical costs.

They describe the health care benefits covered under their health insurance plans and provide documentation about how the plan works. EOBs and EOCs also consist of the total amount paid by the insurance company and the exact amount to be paid by the patient.

While selecting a vendor, consider whether they also help you print and mail such inserts and attachments.

Seamless CRM Integration

A lot of vendors ask you to draft medical statements and then send them over so that they can print and mail them. But, PostGrid’s automated direct mail API integrates into your CRM and helps you draft them.

You can get done with the integration in a few minutes and start creating printing, and mailing statements right from your system. PostGrid integrates with all popular CRM platforms.

There is no technical expertise required to integrate our API into your system. Also, you don’t need to pay an additional installation or integration fee. Just pay for what you print and mail to us.

Medical Test Reports

Hospitals, clinics, and medical test centers send medical test reports to their patients almost every day. These reports contain the results of the test that patients have taken a few days before.

Sometimes, these reports are sent to the patients on the same day the test was conducted. Therefore, you need to be proactive about printing and mailing your medical test reports.

PostGrid allows you to send these reports to the correct mailing addresses in the least time possible. By using our direct mail API, you can keep your operations running smoothly without getting distracted by such menial jobs.

Discharge Summaries

Discharge summaries include a lot of information like the reason for admission, test results, the current health status of the patient, and the outstanding dues. They also list medical advice that the patients need to follow after discharge along with the upcoming checkup dates.

Most hospitals hand over discharge summaries to patients while the discharge process is being completed. But, sometimes, you need to print and mail these summaries to the patients.

Operative Reports

Operative reports contain the findings and procedures of surgical operations. These are also sent to the patients once the operation is over and the patient has been discharged.

History Questionnaires

There are two types of collecting answers to patient medical history questionnaires. Doctors can fill up these questionnaires themselves when the patients visit them. But, it takes up a lot of time and the patient may not have all the needed information at the moment.

So, you can mail these questionnaires to patients beforehand. Ask them to please fill in all the details and answer the questions as precisely as possible.

Assent and Consent Forms

Your patients have the right to either consent to a particular treatment or refuse it. Hence, it is the responsibility of your organization to ask them before you commence with anything. It is particularly important before conducting operations.

In a lot of cases, you are bound by law to have patients sign consent forms. You can take the signature of the patients on their arrival at your hospital or clinic. Additionally, you can print and mail these forms to save time and give patients a while to think about it.

Billing Receipts

Once you receive a payment, you are responsible for sending an acknowledgment receipt to the patient. PostGrid allows you to draft, print, and mail medical receipts quickly and effortlessly.

Sending patient statements is a regular job for medical organizations and hence needs some attention. You cannot push your employees to handle their other jobs along with printing and mailing statements regularly. It can lead to low productivity, reduced employee morale, and tarnished brand image. 

Hence, outsourcing such jobs is the way to go. But, inquire everything about the potential vendors beforehand so that you select the right one. 

Our patient statement services are top-notch, efficient, and time-saving. Also, PostGrid’s print and mail API can help send out your statements at very affordable rates.

Contact us today or sign up here now to get our automated patient statement services!