Monthly Archives: September 2019

If you are frustrated by how confused patients can be about their insurance, and by the conflicts this confusion often leads to (especially about patient balances), you have good reason. Insurance is provided by employers, who theoretically should be able to explain it (it's an important part of employee compensation, after all). And it's offered and managed by insurance companies, who set and enforce the terms. There seem to be several good ways, logical ways to get information about insurance rules. So why do many patients misunderstand how it works? A few things are obvious. One is that health insurance can be very complicated. (It is complicated for those of us who work with it every day, even.) And the training and information patients have access to from their employers and insurers is simply not clear or accessible enough for many patients and many situations. This gap shouldn't be your problem. But it ultimately becomes your problem, since you'll have to deal with patients' confusion and corresponding reluctance to pay. All of which is a long way of saying that helping patients understand how their insurance works may not be something you should have to do, but it is something you're better off doing. And the earlier in the relationship you start the education process, the better. The clearer patients are on their financial responsibility before they receive care, the less likely they will be surprised by a large balance they didn't expect to owe. There is an old saw in marketing about how you have to repeat a message seven to ten times before anyone really absorbs it. The seven to ten is not regarded as a scientific analysis by anyone. But the idea that you have to repeat things, usually more often than you expect, and ideally via different media, is well accepted. (There's a reason you see and hear advertising by the same companies in different places and via different channels.) To this end, we often suggest to medical practices that they have some explanatory material at the front desk that covers common insurance issues--things like what