Recently, an investigation by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) sought to answer the question, “How do households respond to medical bills they disagree with or cannot afford?”(1) The answers, whilst not surprising, serve as a reminder that disparities within populations contribute greatly to medical debt.
Out of 1,135 completed surveys, researchers found that one in five respondents received a medical bill that they either disagreed with or couldn’t afford. Out of those respondents, 136 reached out to their healthcare provider to query the bill. Unsurprisingly, respondents with extroverted or less-agreeable personalities led the charge in questioning bills.
Respondents with lower financial literacy, as well as the uninsured and those without college degrees, were far less likely to contact the billing office, often citing the fact that they didn’t think it would make a difference.
Within the group that questioned their bills, 25.7% had their bills corrected, 18.2% stated they came away with a better understanding of the billing process, 15.5% set up payment plans, 15.2% received a price reduction, 8.1% received financial assistance, and 7.3% had their bills canceled.
Within the past five years, more than half of US adults claimed to carry medical debt. This burden is higher amongst people of color (particularly Black and Hispanic adults), women, and those with less education and lower incomes. The burden of healthcare is not just financial. The responsibility of tracking down billing errors, researching and applying for financial assistance, and setting up payment plans lies squarely on the patients’ shoulders. These processes are time-consuming, complicated, and cumbersome, particularly when a patient is dealing with worrying health concerns.
Almost one-third of survey respondents who were able to identify issues with their bills thought that billing errors were to blame for the discrepancy, and the majority who reported the errors had them rectified. Consumer advocates note that frequent billing errors include upcoding, double billing, inaccuracies from incomplete medical information, and incorrect reductions and denials by insurers.
Salud Revenue Partners addresses the issue of administrative burden in part by making sure that medical bills are correct the first time around. Billing errors cost providers and patients millions of dollars each year. Salud’s proprietary software combined with our human-in-the-loop processes are able to identify and fix errors with startling accuracy, allowing patients to heal instead of forcing them to spend time verifying their bills. That’s just the start, though…Salud’s entire suite of services is centered around promoting health equity, integrity, and ensuring patient — and client — satisfaction.
It is critically important for providers to work to streamline the administrative process, as this has the opportunity to enhance access to financial relief to more patients. Implementing policies that shift the administrative burden from patients to healthcare billing professionals such as Salud Revenue Partners may help address the disparities in self-advocacy highlighted in JAMA’s study.
(1) Duffy EL, Frasco MA, Trish E. Disparate Patient Advocacy When Facing Unaffordable and Problematic Medical Bills. JAMA Health Forum. 2024;5(8):e242744. doi:10.1001/jama-healthforum.2024.2744