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 already exist (staffing shortages, trouble retaining clients, increased regulations, complex payer arrangements, rising costs).

Learn More: Tips for Laboratory Billing Reimbursement Challenges

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

In response to this trend, LigoLab, a leading developer of enterprise-grade pathology lab software has designed a streamlined patient payment portal that provides a convenient and user-friendly way for medical labs to incentivize patients to pay their bills faster.

Learn More: How LigoLab's Pathology Lab Software Supports Lab Report Customization and Client Preferences

“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.

LigoLab’s Advanced Laboratory Billing Solutions 

‍This payment portal workflow differs from competing patient portals provided by legacy laboratory billing solutions that typically call for the patient to enter his or her first name, last name, address, and date of birth on top of a lengthy invoice number. Even worse, these same portals often require the user to create an account and password. 

Abdi said these are unnecessary steps that make 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 our all-in-one lab information system 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 engines and targeted automation to customize invoices and create a greater incentive for the patient to pay faster. 

Learn More: Navigating the Future of Pathology: The LigoLab Advantage

“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. 

Learn More: Reduce Denials and Stop Revenue Leakage With Integrated Laboratory Billing Management

“We provide our lab billing clients with a flexible template that can be adjusted at each stage of the RCM cycle,” said Abdi. “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 RCM customers with several distribution options to select. All of them are convenient, flexible, and automated. 

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

Despite its critical importance to a medical lab's profitability, many laboratories continue to outsource their laboratory revenue cycle management (lab RCM) processes, primarily due to perceived cost savings and specialized expertise offered by external lab billing services.

This is a traditional and flawed approach, especially when other advanced lab billing options are readily available and competitively priced. 

Learn More: Maximizing Your Lab’s Profitability: The Case for In-House Lab Billing

Outsourced lab billing services typically market themselves on cost-effectiveness and efficiency, offering labs fixed costs, such as a percentage of collections or a flat fee, which they claim reduces the overhead of managing salaried staff and maintaining in-house billing software for labs. They claim to possess specialized knowledge in lab billing and offer scaling services according to the lab's needs. They also say they allow labs to concentrate on core operational processes rather than the intricacies of the RCM cycle.

In truth, this approach has several downsides. For example, outsourcing lab RCM often involves less transparency and control over the laboratory billing process, with outsourced services providing less detailed reporting and potentially prioritizing easier, more profitable tasks over more complex, less lucrative ones. 

This can lead to a lack of comprehensive service and missed revenue opportunities where difficult cases are neglected and transparency is obscured, making labs vulnerable to revenue leakage, compliance risks, and even cyber threats like ransomware.

Moreover, chances are the external lab billing services won’t be fully motivated to pursue every claim diligently because their common business model prioritizes maximizing profits across multiple clients rather than focusing intensely on the specific needs of an individual lab. 

Maintaining laboratory revenue cycle management control and autonomy cannot be overstated. In-house lab billing, while potentially more costly upfront, offers labs direct oversight and control over their lab billing operations leading to better recovery of collectible dollars and more tailored solutions to meet specific lab requirements.

Customization is another critical factor. Unlike outsourced services that may use generic laboratory billing systems, modern in-house billing software for labs offers customizable features that can adapt to the unique needs of each lab. LigoLab’s platform, for example, includes a Rule Engine that allows labs to define specific scenarios and automate lab workflow that was previously handled manually, enhancing efficiency and ensuring maximum reimbursement for each claim.

In-house laboratory billing systems are designed to align with the lab’s financial goals, ensuring that every claim is pursued without fail and every possible revenue opportunity is captured. This contrasts with the motivation of outsourced lab billing services, which may be more inclined to handle easy and less time-consuming claims while potentially neglecting more complex cases that could positively contribute to a lab's revenue capture.

LigoLab’s approach fully integrates its LIS laboratory information system (LIS system) functionalities with the platform’s lab RCM processes while providing a comprehensive informatics solution that handles the laboratory billing cycle efficiently and aligns with the overall operational and compliance requirements of labs. 

The integrated all-in-one LIS system is designed for all labs to receive full compensation for their valuable services, aligning financial rewards with lab efforts and achievements, and fostering a more information-driven, future-ready operation.

While outsourcing lab billing might seem beneficial from a cost perspective, don’t believe the hype. Instead, join the growing list of lab leaders who see the significant advantages of an integrated, in-house lab RCM system that provides greater control, customization, and efficiency, ultimately leading to improved financial outcomes and operational efficiency for labs.

To learn more about how LigoLab's integrated lab information system and lab RCM platform can help your organization increase its efficiency, productivity, revenue, and profitability, visit LigoLab’s laboratory billing solutions page and schedule a personalized lab RCM software demonstration with a product specialist.

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