LigoLab Gives Labs a Convenient and User-Friendly Way to Incentivize Patients and Accelerate Payments

It’s a healthcare trend gaining momentum. Soon, it may directly affect every medical laboratory’s bottom line, even as challenging external threats persist (staffing shortages, trouble retaining clients, increased regulations, complex payer arrangements, rising costs).

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Empowering Labs to Reduce Financial Risk with a Streamlined Patient Payment Portal

How do clinical labs and pathology practices protect themselves from financial exposure from unpaid claims as insurance companies continue to manipulate payer policies and shift more of the payment burden on patients?

LigoLab, a leading provider of enterprise pathology lab software, has responded to this trend by developing a streamlined patient payment portal that gives laboratories a convenient, user-friendly way to encourage faster patient payments.

“With LigoLab, it’s simple,” said Farzad Abdi, LigoLab’s Laboratory Billing Manager. 

“With LigoLab’s laboratory revenue cycle management (lab RCM) payment portal, all the patient has to do is enter a last name and a five-digit PIN found on the invoice to get into his or her account. It’s a straightforward laboratory billing process,” he said.

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LigoLab’s Advanced Laboratory Billing Solutions 

‍This payment portal workflow differs from the patient portals provided by legacy laboratory billing systems, which typically require the patient to enter a first name, last name, address, and date of birth in addition to a lengthy invoice number. Even worse, these same portals often require users to create an account and password. 

Abdi said this is unnecessary and makes it more difficult for the laboratory to collect patient payments. 

“The goal is to increase the patient payment rate while decreasing the time the invoice spends in A/R,” said Abdi. “With LigoLab’s all-in-one laboratory information system (LIS) and lab RCM platform, the payment is automatically posted to the patient’s account and deposited into the lab’s bank account.”

Abdi also noted that with LigoLab’s lab revenue cycle management module, customers can leverage the platform’s rule-based automation engine and targeted automation to customize invoices and create incentives for faster payments. 

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Customizable, Automated Invoicing That Improves Clarity, Encourages Prompt Payment, and Enhances the Patient Experience

“Our lab billing invoice templates can be customized to include the ordering provider, the doctor’s name, and the date of service, so when the patient receives the invoice, he or she knows exactly where it’s coming from and is more likely to make the payment upon receipt,” said Abdi, who also noted this level of customization can be additionally used to offer a discount for prompt payment. 

“We provide our lab billing customers with a flexible template that can be adjusted at each stage of the RCM cycle,” he said. “With a basic understanding of our all-in-one informatics platform, users can create a new pricing policy, offer a discount, and adjust the due date and grace period. They can also communicate any desired message by adding a note to any invoice.”

Once the invoice is ready for the patient, LigoLab provides its lab billing customers with several distribution options. All of them are convenient, flexible, and automated. 

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Unite Your Medical LIS & Lab RCM Workflows and Truly Revolutionize Your Business

Despite its vital role in a laboratory’s financial performance, many organizations still outsource their lab revenue cycle management, often believing external lab billing services offer greater cost efficiency or specialized expertise.

However, this long-standing practice is increasingly outdated - and misguided - given the availability of modern, competitively priced laboratory billing solutions that deliver far greater control, transparency, and value.

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The Hidden Risks and Limitations of Outsourced Laboratory Billing Services

Outsourced lab billing companies often promote themselves as cost-effective and efficient, offering pricing models (such as a percentage of collections or flat fees) that they claim reduce the overhead of in-house staff and lab billing software. They position their teams as experts in laboratory revenue cycle management, capable of scaling with demand and enabling labs to focus on core operations rather than navigating the RCM cycle.

In reality, this model comes with significant drawbacks. Outsourcing frequently results in reduced transparency and limited control over the laboratory billing process, with lab vendors offering less detailed reporting and often prioritizing simpler, more profitable tasks over complex cases. This selective effort can lead to missed revenue, incomplete follow-through, and obscured visibility, leaving laboratories vulnerable to revenue leakage, compliance issues, and increasing cybersecurity risks such as ransomware.

Additionally, most outsourced lab billing firms lack deep incentive alignment. Because their business model is built around maximizing profits across many clients, they rarely pursue every claim with the diligence required to optimize a single laboratory’s revenue.

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Why Control, Customization, and Autonomy Make In-House Lab Billing the Superior Choice

Maintaining full control over laboratory revenue cycle management is paramount. While in-house lab billing may require a higher initial investment, it offers labs direct oversight of their financial operations, resulting in stronger accountability, a higher rate of revenue recovery, and tailored workflows that match the organization’s exact needs.

Customization is a major advantage. Unlike outsourced providers that rely on generic laboratory billing systems, modern in-house laboratory billing software offers flexible, configurable tools for complex lab-specific workflows. LigoLab’s all-in-one informatics platform, for example, features an advanced Rule Engine that empowers users to define unique scenarios and automate workflows that once relied on manual intervention, increasing efficiency and maximizing reimbursement on every claim.

In-house lab RCM systems are built to align with a laboratory’s financial objectives, ensuring every claim is pursued and every revenue opportunity is captured. This stands in stark contrast to outsourced lab billing services, which often prioritize simpler, faster claims while overlooking more complex cases that could significantly improve a lab’s bottom line.

The Power of a Fully Integrated Medical LIS + Lab RCM Platform for Superior Financial and Operational Performance

LigoLab’s unified approach tightly integrates its laboratory information system software with advanced lab revenue cycle management capabilities, delivering a comprehensive informatics platform that streamlines the entire billing lifecycle while supporting operational, financial, and compliance requirements.

This all-in-one LIS system is engineered to ensure laboratories receive full and accurate compensation for the services they provide, aligning financial outcomes with lab performance and enabling a more data-driven, future-ready operation.

While outsourced lab billing may appear cost-effective on the surface, the reality is far different. Forward-thinking lab leaders are recognizing the substantial advantages of bringing the RCM cycle in-house through an integrated platform, gaining unmatched control, configurability, transparency, and efficiency that directly translates into stronger financial results.

Ready to Transform Your Lab’s Operations and Financial Performance?

Connect with a product specialist for a customized demo of LigoLab’s fully integrated medical LIS and lab RCM platform.

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