Why Hospitals Want Patients to Pay Upfront
By John Tozzi September 25, 2014
Tozzi is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek in New York.
URL: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-25/why-hospitals-want-patients-to-pay-upfront
Melody Rempe spends much of her day telling people who are about to go into the hospital how much they’ll have to pay. As a patient financial counselor at Nebraska Methodist Health System, she calls patients about a week before they go in for procedures with estimates of their bills and what portion insurance will cover. Although many are grateful, some cry or yell. “Sometimes you’re talking to them about the biggest thing in their life,” she says. Rempe says most calls end well when she walks patients through the hospital’s payment-plan options or other financial assistance.
Hospitals have good reason to be concerned about their patients’ finances: Even people with insurance are increasingly responsible for a big portion of their medical bills. Among Americans who get health coverage at work, 41 percent have deductibles of at least $1,000 they must meet before insurance starts paying. That’s up from 10 percent in 2006, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Those with employer coverage are joined by 7 million new enrollees in Obamacare plans, which typically make patients share a large chunk of costs. The average deductible in the most popular “silver” tier of coverage is $2,267, according to an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Raising deductibles helps employers and insurers limit premium hikes. It also shifts more of the risk onto individuals. That in turn boosts the chances that doctors and hospitals won’t get paid. If a patient has a $2,900 deductible, “it’s far more difficult to get that $2,900 from an individual patient than it is from the Medicare program or from Blue Cross Blue Shield,” says Richard Gundling, vice president of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, a trade group. A March report on hospitals from Moody’s (MCO), the credit-rating firm, was blunt: “Today’s high deductibles are tomorrow’s bad debt.”
Hospitals’ total cost of uncompensated care reached $46 billion in 2012, equal to about 6 percent of their expenses, the American Hospital Association says. Large for-profit chains such as LifePoint Hospitals (LPNT), which operates more than 60 medical centers in 20 states, have felt the impact of rising deductibles. LifePoint’s bad debt related to copays and deductibles is running at $25 million per quarter this year, up from $15 million per quarter in 2013, Leif Murphy, the company’s chief financial officer, said on an earnings call in July. He blamed the increase in part on the growing prevalence of high-deductible plans.
As the mechanics of insurance policies become more complicated, Americans are having a harder time understanding how their plan choices will affect their finances. Only 14 percent of insured adults correctly understand insurance jargon such as de.
Why Hospitals Want Patients to Pay UpfrontBy John Tozzi Septem.docx
1. Why Hospitals Want Patients to Pay Upfront
By John Tozzi September 25, 2014
Tozzi is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek in New York.
URL: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-25/why-
hospitals-want-patients-to-pay-upfront
Melody Rempe spends much of her day telling people who are
about to go into the hospital how much they’ll have to pay. As a
patient financial counselor at Nebraska Methodist Health
System, she calls patients about a week before they go in for
procedures with estimates of their bills and what portion
insurance will cover. Although many are grateful, some cry or
yell. “Sometimes you’re talking to them about the biggest thing
in their life,” she says. Rempe says most calls end well when
she walks patients through the hospital’s payment-plan options
or other financial assistance.
Hospitals have good reason to be concerned about their
patients’ finances: Even people with insurance are increasingly
responsible for a big portion of their medical bills. Among
Americans who get health coverage at work, 41 percent have
deductibles of at least $1,000 they must meet before insurance
starts paying. That’s up from 10 percent in 2006, according to
the Kaiser Family Foundation. Those with employer coverage
are joined by 7 million new enrollees in Obamacare plans,
which typically make patients share a large chunk of costs. The
average deductible in the most popular “silver” tier of coverage
is $2,267, according to an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation.
Raising deductibles helps employers and insurers limit premium
hikes. It also shifts more of the risk onto individuals. That in
turn boosts the chances that doctors and hospitals won’t get
paid. If a patient has a $2,900 deductible, “it’s far more
difficult to get that $2,900 from an individual patient than it is
from the Medicare program or from Blue Cross Blue Shield,”
2. says Richard Gundling, vice president of the Healthcare
Financial Management Association, a trade group. A March
report on hospitals from Moody’s (MCO), the credit-rating firm,
was blunt: “Today’s high deductibles are tomorrow’s bad debt.”
Hospitals’ total cost of uncompensated care reached $46 billion
in 2012, equal to about 6 percent of their expenses, the
American Hospital Association says. Large for-profit chains
such as LifePoint Hospitals (LPNT), which operates more than
60 medical centers in 20 states, have felt the impact of rising
deductibles. LifePoint’s bad debt related to copays and
deductibles is running at $25 million per quarter this year, up
from $15 million per quarter in 2013, Leif Murphy, the
company’s chief financial officer, said on an earnings call in
July. He blamed the increase in part on the growing prevalence
of high-deductible plans.
As the mechanics of insurance policies become more
complicated, Americans are having a harder time understanding
how their plan choices will affect their finances. Only
14 percent of insured adults correctly understand insurance
jargon such as deductibles, coinsurance, copays, and out-of-
pocket maximums, according to a 2013 study published in the
Journal of Health Economics.
Many Americans aren’t prepared for a medical emergency. Dr.
Marilyn Peitso, a pediatrician in St. Cloud, Minn., says parents
often can’t afford $300 to $400 for antibiotics to treat an ear
infection. “For young working families, this can get to be a real
financial burden, and it can make them less likely to seek
needed care,” she says. About 44 percent of households have
less than three months of savings, according to an analysis by
the Corporation for Enterprise Development, an antipoverty
group. “Tell me what 28-year-old is going to be able to provide,
especially in this economy, $6,000 of their own money?” says
Jan Grigsby, chief financial officer at Springhill Medical Center
in Mobile, Ala.
Like Nebraska Methodist, Springhill reaches out to patients
before scheduled procedures with an estimate of what they’ll
3. owe, Grigsby says. For those who can’t pay immediately, the
hospital works with lenders to arrange no-interest payment
plans of as long as two years. Staff members also check whether
patients are eligible for charity care from the hospital or if they
qualify for Medicaid.
Many hospitals try to get patients to pay upfront 30 percent to
50 percent of what they’ll owe and some offer discounts for
paying early, says Yaro Voloshin of health-care consultant
MedAssets (MDAS). One reason is that they want to avoid the
damage to their reputations that accompanies aggressive debt
collection practices. “Over the years there’s been some stigma
about collecting from patients,” says Zac Stillerman, an
executive with the Advisory Board, which sells software and
consulting services to hospitals. “It’s a bit of a third rail.”
Managers at Nebraska Methodist noticed payment problems
getting worse about seven years ago, when a large employer in
the Omaha area introduced a plan with a $5,000 deductible. “We
would bill a procedure for a patient; the entire amount would be
applied to the deductible,” says Bob Wagner, the hospital’s
director for revenue cycle. “We actually got no money.”
Now any patient scheduling a procedure expected to cost more
than $500 out of pocket gets a call from Rempe or another of
Nebraska Methodist’s five financial counselors. The hospital
tries to get some payment in advance, but it doesn’t turn away
those who can’t pay.
Even simply identifying the indigent can help, says Gundling of
the Healthcare Financial Management Association. “For both
the patient and the facility,” he says, “trying to collect a debt
that can’t be paid just wastes everybody’s time.”
The bottom line: Some of the 17 million U.S. residents covered
by high-deductible health plans are racking up medical debt.
Questions
With this case, you are provided a sample of patient data for
your analyses. The provided link in Blackboard to the Excel
4. workbook contains data on patients in a particular hospital. The
dataset contains the following variables:
Income: Patient's annual household income
Past Due Amount: Amount of debt or money owed by the
patient to the hospital.
Insurance: Type (if any) of medical insurance.
Years since last visit: Number of years since the patient's last
appointment.
Year born: The year in which the patient was born
Gender: Patient's gender
Hospitalizations: Lifetime hospitalizations of the patient
Ethnicity: Patient's Race
Marital Status: Patient's Marital Status
Hospitals are concerned about patients’ ability to pay their
medical bills. It is suggested that there a relationship between
type of medical insurance and medical debt. Write a concise
report answering questions 1-6. Using past due amount as the
dependent variable and all other variables as predictors
(independent variables), run appropriate statistical analyses in
Excel to mine the data. Label sections of your report to
correspond to the questions. Insert tables and graphs from
Excel in your report as appropriate.
1. Summarize the issue(s) and/or problems from the case in your
own words. Support your answer(s).
2. Identify strategies for solving the problem.
3. Propose one or more solutions/hypotheses which address the
problem(s).
4. Evaluate potential solutions to the problem(s). Analyze own
and others’ assumptions.
What inferences can you make from your dataset? Some
suggestions are listed below; however, conduct additional
analyses as deemed appropriate.
a. Create a frequency table of insurance types.
5. b. Construct a bar chart, a pie chart, and a Pareto diagram of
insurance types.
c. Which graphical method do you think is best to portray these
data?
d. Based on this data, what conclusions can you make about the
insurance status of the patients?
5. Choose a solution.
6. Evaluate outcomes by reviewing the results relative to the
problem(s) defined.
1
7-32.
SeaFair Fashions relies on its sales force of 220 to do an initial
screening of all new fashion. The company is currently
bringing out a new line of swimwear and has invited 40
salespeople to its Orlando home office. An issue of constant
concern to the SeaFair sales office is the volume of orders
generated by each salesperson. Last year, the overall company
average was $417,330 with a standard deviation of $45,285.
(Hint: The finite population correction factor, Equation 7.5, is
required.)
a. Determine the probability the sample of 40 will have a sales
average less than $400,000.
b. What shape do you think the distribution of all possible
sample means of 40 will have? Discuss.
c. Determine the scale of the standard deviation of the
distribution of the sample mean of all possible samples of size
40.
d. How would the answers to parts a, b and c change if the home
office brought 60 salespeople to Orlando? Provide the
respective answers for this sample size.
6. e. Each year SeaFair invites the sales personnel with sales
above the 85th percentile to enjoy a complementary vacation in
Hawaii. Determine the smallest average salary for the sales
personnel that were in Hawaii last year. (Assume the
distribution of sales was normally distributed last year.)
7-54.
United Manufacturing and Supply makes sprinkler valves for
use in residential sprinkler systems. United supplies these
valves to major companies such as Rain Bird and Nelson, who
in turn sell sprinkler products to retailers. United recently
entered into a contract to supply 40,000 sprinkler valves. The
contract called for at least 97% of the valves to be free of
defects. Before shipping the valves, United managers tested
200 randomly selected valves and found 190 defect-free valves
in the sample. The managers wish to know the probability of
finding 190 or fewer defect-free valves if in fact the population
of 40,000 valves is 97% defect-free. Discuss how they could
use this information to determine whether to ship the valves to
the customer.
8-12.
Allante Pizza delivers pizzas throughout its local market area at
no charge to the customer. However, customers often tip the
driver. The owner is interested in estimating the mean tip
income per delivery. To do this, she has selected a simple
random sample of 12 deliveries and has recorded the tips that
were received by the drivers. These data are
$2.25 $2.50 $2.25 $2.00 $2.00 $1.50
$0.00 $2.00 $1.50 $2.00 $3.00 $1.50
a. Based on these sample data, what is the best point estimate to
use as an estimate to use as an estimate of the true mean tip per
7. delivery?
b. Suppose the owner is interested in developing a 90%
confidence interval estimate. Given the fact that the population
standard deviation is unknown, what distribution will be used to
obtain the critical value?
c. Referring to part b, what assumption is required to use the
specifies distribution to obtain the critical value? Develop a box
and whisker plot to illustrate whether this assumption seems to
be reasonably satisfied.
d. Referring to parts b and c, construct and interpret the 90%
confidence interval estimate for the population mean.
8-38.
The Northwest Pacific Phone Company wishes to estimate the
average number of minutes its customers spend on long-distance
calls per month. The company wants the estimate made with
99% confidence and a margin of error of no more than 5
minutes.
a. A previous study indicated that the standard deviation for
long-distance calls is 21 minutes per month. What should the
sample size be?
b. Determine the required sample size if the confidence level
were changed from 99% to 90%.
c. What would the required sample size be if the confidence
level was 95% and the margin of error was 8 minutes?
8-56.
As the automobile accident rate increases, insurers are forced to
8. increase their premium rates. Companies such as Allstate have
recently been running a campaign they hope will result in fewer
accidents by their policyholders. For each six-month period
that a customer goes without an accident, Allstate will reduce
the customer’s premium rate by a certain percentage.
Companies like Allstate have reason to be concerned about
driving habits, based on a survey conducted by Drive for Life, a
safety group sponsored by Volvo of North America, in which
1,100 drivers were surveyed. Among those surveyed, 74% said
that careless or aggressive driving was the biggest threat on the
road. One-third of the respondents said that cell phone usage
by other drivers was the driving behavior that annoyed them the
most. Based on these data, assuming that the sample was a
simple random sample, construct and interpret a 95%
confidence interval estimate for the true proportion in the
population of all drivers who are annoyed by cell phone users.
Patient DataIncomePast Due AmountInsuranceYears Since Last
VisitYear BornGenderHospitalizationsEthnicityMarital
Status92680Medicaid01955Female1CaucasianMarried120990Me
dicare11934Male8CaucasianMarried963970Private01973Female
2CaucasianMarried63027327Private11958Female6HispanicDivo
rced2732450Private01963Female3CaucasianMarried587560Priv
ate01975Male2CaucasianMarried1398320Private31992Male1Ca
ucasianMarried199300Medicare01945Female6HispanicMarried3
7615149Medicaid21969Female4AsianWidowed76863616Private
11989Male2CaucasianMarried24125197Private01947Male0Cauc
asianMarried2865058Medicaid21968Male1AsianDivorced15340
0Private11956Female5CaucasianMarried202744506Private2195
2Male5HispanicMarried202490Medicare11938Male7African
AmericanMarried33959171Private31978Male3HispanicDivorced
177266267Private01989Female2AsianDivorced25020266Medica
id21957Female1CaucasianDivorced163109168Private01979Mal
e3CaucasianDivorced166501544Medicaid01980Female1Caucasi
anDivorced25664155Medicaid11981Male2CaucasianDivorced14