InstaMed, a J.P. Morgan company, released the 10th edition of the Trends in Healthcare Payments Annual Report today. The report highlights trends from all major industry stakeholders: consumers, providers and payers. The trends reveal that high percentages of the stakeholders, especially consumers, are looking for a digital healthcare payments experience. The impact of COVID-19 and long-term precautions around human and manual interactions stand to increase the demand for digitization.
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InstaMed’s Tenth Annual Report Finds High Consumer Demand for Digitization in Healthcare Payments (Photo: Business Wire)
The report finds that consumers are regularly the hardest hit by healthcare payment trends. This group must manage consistently increasing payment responsibility with outdated payment methods and channels, coupled with often confusing information. Demographic factors, including age and gender, can exacerbate the negative experiences.
- 91% of consumers were surprised by a medical bill in 2019
- 83% of consumers prefer electronic payment methods for medical bills
- Millennials and Gen X are 28% more likely than Baby Boomers to consider switching a healthcare provider for a better payment experience
- Women are 22% more likely to be unable to pay off a balance of $1,000
Providers tend to struggle to keep up with increases in patient collections but are not universally adopting tools that eliminate the burdens of collections.
- 78% of providers cannot collect a $1,000+ patient balance in 30 days
- 87% of providers leverage paper and manual processes for collections
- Only 23% of providers offer eStatements
Payers also frequently hold onto legacy channels and business processes that can produce poor experiences, yet many express a desire to prioritize the advances that would bring change.
- 86% prioritize consumer preference for making all of their healthcare payments in one place, but only 38% say direct-to-consumer solutions are a top priority
- 81% still deliver checks to providers
- 93% accept checks or cash for premium payments
- 71% leverage or plan to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning offerings
“For ten years, InstaMed has reported on the most critical trends impacting healthcare payments for consumers, providers and payers. This research is more important than ever, as the industry faces the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on patient and member engagement,” said Martha Beard, Managing Director, Head of Healthcare Payments, J.P. Morgan. “InstaMed and J.P. Morgan are focused on and committed to supporting the industry and all participants through this research, our combined technology platform and our breadth and scale.”
“Ten years ago, InstaMed set out to deliver the trends in healthcare payments for the purpose of improving the payment experience for all stakeholders,” said Bill Marvin, CEO, InstaMed and Managing Director, J.P. Morgan. “This year’s report shows the continued adoption of digital experiences and approaches across consumers, providers and payers. In the COVID-19 environment, we believe these trends will accelerate and now include growth in remote patient check-in, significant increases in contactless payments, meaningful expansion of telemedicine and an overall shift to digital experiences in healthcare.”
The Trends in Healthcare Payments Tenth Annual Report highlights quantitative data derived from $526 billion in healthcare payments processed on the InstaMed platform and also features qualitative, proprietary, independently-gathered survey data from consumers, providers and payers nationwide. The report is available for download, free of charge, at www.instamed.com/trends along with registration for the webinar InstaMed will be hosting on the report on Thursday, May 14th at 12PM ET.
About InstaMed
InstaMed, a J.P. Morgan company, powers a better healthcare payments experience on one platform that connects consumers, providers and payers for every healthcare payment transaction. InstaMed’s patented, private cloud-based technology securely transforms healthcare payments by driving electronic transactions, processing payments and moving healthcare data seamlessly, and improving consumer satisfaction. Consumers, providers and payers benefit from InstaMed’s exclusive focus on healthcare, integration into any healthcare IT system, robust analytics and proven scale.
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