Across the healthcare ecosystem, speed is critical. Healthcare organizations may want to look for new ways to reduce friction (in care delivery, benefits management, financial operations, and more) as they work to mitigate delays in patient care and maximize financial and operational health. But when it comes to optimizing workflows, B2B healthcare payments represent a significant opportunity for improvement.
Financial institutions (FIs) that find ways to help healthcare organizations modernize money movement can position themselves at the forefront of a crucial evolution in the healthcare marketplace.
Though the use of check payments may vary across organizations and use cases, paper checks still make up a significant portion of transactions across the healthcare industry. Nearly 30% of healthcare supply chain payments are paid via check. 2 out of 3 payer-to-provider payments and more than half of payer and provider payments to consumers are still made using paper checks.¹ Manual, paper-based payments processes can not only be opaque and difficult for healthcare organization’s finance teams to manage, but they can also be vulnerable to fraud that puts patients, payers and providers at risk.
“We are seeing a strong trend where many of the hospitals and health systems we talk to are looking to move payments off ACH and check, in large part to help accelerate and enhance various payments processes. In a space where every minute counts, streamlining consumer and B2B payments workflows can significantly reduce friction and enhance payments experiences for healthcare stakeholders,” says Denise Evans, Senior Director of Business Development for B2B Acceptance, Visa Commercial Solutions.
Relieving administrative burden with automation
Many traditional payments processes are still heavily manual and can be fraught with administrative hurdles due to complexity and lack of transparency. Hospitals and health systems often have limited visibility into real-time cashflow that impacts their ability to maximize working capital. Many organizations are also navigating slower claims settlement and heightened risk of fraud. Patients experience delays and inefficiencies that prolong access to needed care and equipment.
Adopting advanced payment automation and digitization tools can help stakeholders:
- Modernize money movement across their organizations
- Relieve the burden on finance teams
- Receive payments faster
- Increase payments security
- Improve customer and vendor relationships
From supplier invoices to reconciliation and reimbursement, payments automation for healthcare organizations can help improve management of days payable outstanding (DPO) and days sales outstanding (DSO) while enhancing transparency and trust with secure payments. FIs that offer a range of digital payments solutions — including corporate card programs designed for healthcare organizations — can better position themselves to drive this shift forward.
Benefits of faster healthcare payments
Converting paper check payments to commercial and virtual cards with enhanced workflow capabilities can benefit stakeholders on all sides of a healthcare transaction. Automation enables fast, accurate spend management in place of manual accounts payable and accounts receivable processes (AP/AR), including reconciliation and remittance, as well as reimbursement processes.
Using virtual cards that offer real-time data reporting can also provide stakeholders with greater control and visibility over transactions, increasing security and clarity of every dollar spent. For payers, this clear line of sight into payments activity can help mitigate fraud risk and enhance trust in accurate payments.
For hospitals and health systems, using card payments to pay suppliers can help maximize working capital and cashflow flexibility by improving DPO while accelerating days sales outstanding DSO for suppliers. ACH and paper check payments can often result in longer DPO/DSO time frames that may negatively impact supplier relationships. Accelerating supplier payments while gaining float via card payments can help healthcare organizations improve financial health and support growth.
At the same time, health systems can receive faster payer reimbursements via automated card payments and reduce the administrative burden associated with managing accounts receivable. With an end-to-end digital payments workflow, healthcare organizations can more efficiently manage payments and improve cost-to-collect and cost-to-pay.
By facilitating fast and easy payments, FIs can help healthcare organizations transform finance operations and capture significant cost savings. Across the healthcare continuum, providing modern digital payment solutions can help maximizes value for all stakeholders — and enables issuers, acquirers and other payment facilitators to capture their portions of a larger share of B2B payment volume.
Enabling growth for financial institutions
When choosing a partner to help accelerate payments and modernize finance workflows for healthcare customers, FIs should look to a trusted, experienced leader in digital payments — one that understands the unique needs of buyers and sellers and can create unique solutions designed for the healthcare ecosystem.
Visa Commercial Healthcare Solutions offers advanced payment capabilities and the deep, practical expertise of payments leaders with decades of experience from across the healthcare industry. Our teams can help FIs articulate the value story of modern payments capabilities and help design tailored payment solutions that meet the unique needs of healthcare organizations — with the enhanced security and reliability of an established and well-known payments brand.
Together with Visa, FIs can help stakeholders across the healthcare industry (from insurers to hospitals and health systems, to industry suppliers) move more payments from ACH and paper check to card — accelerating payments workflows and increasing healthcare payments volume for FIs.
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