TransUnion Survey Finds Patients Willing to Pay More of Their Bills With Improved Billing Information at the Time of Service

CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - Apr 7, 2014) - According to a TransUnion Healthcare survey of more than 700 insured consumers, 75% of patients said that pre-treatment estimates of out-of-pocket costs would improve their ability to pay for healthcare. However, nearly six in 10 patients (56%) either rarely or never received an estimate of out-of-pocket costs before they received treatment; 59% said they have been surprised by the costs they were responsible for when receiving their final bill.

Of patients who reported either paying a bill late, leaving a bill unpaid or letting a bill go to collections, three-quarters reported that they were always or often surprised by the costs they were responsible for in their final bills.

"These survey results tell us that consumers are less likely to have payment problems when they obtain more information about the cost of their healthcare services up front," said John Woody, vice president of product development for Transunion Healthcare. "Partly as a response to these issues, TransUnion Healthcare continues to improve payment experiences for patients and help ensure that healthcare providers capture all third-party reimbursements owed to them with the recent enhancements to our ClearIQ patient access platform."

TransUnion has enhanced its ClearIQ platform by adding Medical Necessity and upgrading its Insurance Eligibility and Benefits Verification solution. The ClearIQ platform now features customized business rules, an easy-to-read eligibility viewer, coverage discovery, alerts and work queue enhancements.

The improved Insurance Eligibility solution offers providers real-time electronic verification of patients' insurance eligibility and benefit levels for third party coverage. The update simplifies the payment experience for patients by enabling providers to comprehensively identify coverage options for specific procedures and customized to each patient's unique circumstances. By capturing accurate benefit information at the point-of-service, providers may be able to avoid errors and decrease claim denials while increasing collections from patients.

"From the patient's perspective, the latest enhancement equips them with accurate and essential information about their financial responsibility prior to treatment so they can make more informed decisions about their care and ability to pay," said Woody. "It arms providers with the tools they need to minimize claim denials, streamline front-end registration and, ultimately, reduce uncompensated care."