The Comedy Show of Patient Payment (Price Transparency in Healthcare: A Stand-Up Comedy Special)
By Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick
Twitter: @drnic1
Host of Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist – #TheIncrementalist
On this episode I talked to Ryne Natzke, Chief Revenue Officer, at TrustCommerce, a Sphere company (@SphereCommerce), a cloud-based, software and payments technology company. Ryne and I met some years back and he was kind enough to share some of the details of that meeting, and the fact I was talking about future technology, much of which has come to fruition since.
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Ryne highlights the challenges of handling patient payments in the healthcare industry and the need for transparency and security in financial transactions while acknowledging the complexity of estimating patient payments due to the variability in insurance plans and unplanned medical expenses. As he points out making financial conversations a standard part of healthcare discussions would be a positive step toward improving transparency and patient understanding.
We dive into the issue of discussing money, something I had real trouble doing when I worked in Australia as a doctor, and Ryne’s personal experience where billing was not discussed upfront during a medical procedure, leading to surprise charges later.
Listen in as we discuss the changing landscape of healthcare payments and the need for price transparency and while we both agree that the industry is moving towards more personalized and digital payment options to improve patient experience your mileage may vary. As Ryne points out providing patients with tailored payment options and proactively setting up payment plans can make the process less daunting. The future of healthcare payments is one where patients have more choices and can shop for healthcare services as they do for other goods and services online. Change in healthcare may be slow, although it doesn’t have to be even though it is incremental but expect generational shifts as younger patients become more connected to their own health.
This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.
About the Show
About the Show
For years Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick, has served as a voice on the impact of new technologies on healthcare, earning a reputation as a leading authority on where the future of medicine is going. Combining powers of observation and real world experience, Dr. Nick has seen many predictions come true and makes the case that innovations in healthcare can be accomplished incrementally, not just by moonshot events. Tune in to hear Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist and his guests discuss what the future of healthcare looks like, how we will get there, and what it will take to improve healthcare for all.
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