Why More Hospitals and Doctors Are Asking Patients to Pay First
Hospitals and doctor’s offices are increasingly asking patients to foot the bill ahead of medical procedures
Have a costly medical procedure coming up? Odds are, you’re going to be asked to pay ahead of time.
This year, about 92% of U.S. health providers either encourage prepayment, require it or collect a payment method on file during the estimate process, according to a survey conducted by PayZen, a patient payment service provider, and the Healthcare Financial Management Association. Last year, it was 81%.
It is causing sticker shock for patients, and headaches for patients who overpay and then try to collect refunds. Then there are the cases where a patient pays several thousand dollars, only to learn they owe thousands more.
This growing practice is the result of insurers shifting more costs to patients, which leaves hospitals in the lurch when bills go unpaid, said Molly Smith, vice president at the American Hospital Association. Roughly half of patients’ shares of the bills remain unpaid one year after a healthcare service, according to a study published in JAMA Health Forum last year.
Federal law doesn’t bar hospital requests for prepayments of nonemergency services, but some states are trying to address aspects of the trend. Last year, Maryland enacted a law to bar hospitals from steering patients into prepayment plans solely to avoid offering financial assistance. Florida last year started requiring health providers to promptly issue refunds of overpayments to patients.
Hospitals aren’t allowed to refuse emergency care based on payment status. But there is a wide berth of procedures between emergency and truly elective, leaving people in need of things like ACL tear repairs or minimally invasive heart procedures, where delaying could pose health risks.