XiFin Client and Patient Portals Improve Retention and Accelerate Reimbursements

Typically, if a patient has a question about a bill they receive for laboratory testing, they must call the laboratory to get those questions answered. They also must call the laboratory to request a payment plan, if they cannot afford to pay their entire balance at once. In some cases, patients even need to call the laboratory to pay a balance by credit card.

For larger laboratories, this means hundreds of calls each work day. The lab needs to staff appropriately to resolve these inquiries, which is a significant extra cost. These calls also impact the patient experience, by adding an extra step for the patient and for new generations of patients, making phone calls is generally not their preferred method of communication. If the patient feels they did not receive high-quality service from the laboratory, they may complain to their provider, which can cause friction between the provider and the lab.

XiFin portals were specifically designed to expedite this process, to help labs get paid faster, to improve the patient and ordering physician experience and to reduce staffing cost. These portals also help labs grow without needing to increase their staffing at the same rate.

Client Portal

The XiFin Client Portal helps laboratories more deeply integrate communication and data exchange with ordering physicians. This increases physician satisfaction, reduces errors, and speeds reimbursement. Through the Client Portal, physicians and their staff can more effectively:

These benefits are even more important now that the country is dealing with a pandemic. Many laboratories are experiencing spikes in errors and denials based on missing insurance information. This is due to new “pop-up” testing sites and consumer assumptions that testing is free or paid by the government automatically.

Patient Portal

The Patient Portal enables patients to securely:

Setting up payment plans is becoming increasingly important as patient responsibility amounts increase. In the past, setting up a payment plan involved the patient calling the laboratory customer service team, negotiating a mutually acceptable payment plan, and setting up a recurring payment until the balance was paid in full. This required extra time and effort for both the patient and the lab staff.

Client Pilot Project

A recent XiFin client portal pilot project demonstrated positive financial outcomes and resulted in a new strategic initiative. During the pilot project a large laboratory worked to get a small portion of the referring physician offices to use the XiFin client portal to provide missing or incorrect information. They wanted to understand both the financial impact as well as the relationship impacts with the physician offices and the laboratory sales team. There is often a concern that by asking clients, patients and team members to use technology in addition personal relationships that this may negatively impact retention or satisfaction.

Pilot Project Results

The XiFin Client and Patient portals help laboratories better integrate their relationships with ordering physicians and patients. The portals streamline many processes that used to require manual intervention at the physician’s office or the lab. As a result, diagnostic providers get paid more quickly. In addition to accelerating reimbursement, both physicians and labs benefit from cost savings. Finally, laboratories have an easy, effective way to improve their relationships with ordering physicians and patients alike.