Without explicit guidance, recent reports show newly insured patients may tend to continue to seek care where they have always found it — emergency departments. A blog post from MediGain offers the following suggestions for practices to encourage newly insured patients to seek care away from the emergency department:
• Invest in and contribute to community education initiatives, which may offer a high return on investment as the newly insured begin to see the benefits of a long-term relationship with a provider.
• Invest in practice management software to identify scheduling and wait time trends to better schedule those who may not be able to take time off work.
According to the blog post, "higher patient volume can lead to healthier revenue cycle management, but it's difficult to get through to new patients who aren't sure what seeing a physician at a practice could do for them that an ER doctor can't."
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• Invest in and contribute to community education initiatives, which may offer a high return on investment as the newly insured begin to see the benefits of a long-term relationship with a provider.
• Invest in practice management software to identify scheduling and wait time trends to better schedule those who may not be able to take time off work.
According to the blog post, "higher patient volume can lead to healthier revenue cycle management, but it's difficult to get through to new patients who aren't sure what seeing a physician at a practice could do for them that an ER doctor can't."