Electronic Health Reporter

InstaMed, released the 2016 Trends in Healthcare Payments Annual Report. This is the seventh annual report from InstaMed and features key market trends influencing the healthcare industry from an objective view to educate the market and promote awareness, change and greater efficiency. The 2016 Trends in Healthcare Payments Annual Report is available to the public free of charge at www.instamed.com/trends.

This year’s report focused on four core challenges facing the healthcare industry, as highlighted by several telling statistics from 2016:

1. Consumers are demanding more from healthcare
• 92% of consumers want to know payment responsibility prior to a provider visit
• 74% of consumers are confused by Explanation of Benefits (EOBs) and medical bills
• 73% of providers report that it takes one month or longer to collect from patients
2. Omnichannel payments are impacting healthcare
• 68% of consumers prefer electronic payment methods to pay their medical bills
• 80% of consumers prefer online payment channels to pay their health plan premiums
• 20% of online healthcare payments are made on a mobile device
3. Paper is hurting all healthcare stakeholders
• 86% of consumers receive paper medical bills
• 88% of providers report receiving paper checks and Explanation of Payment (EOPs) from one or more of their payers
• 85% of providers prefer ERA/EFT payments
4. Healthcare data is under attack
• 2016 saw more healthcare data breaches than any other year on record
• 90% of providers report that payment security is very important when collecting patient payments
• 59% of consumers have significant concerns regarding the security of making payments for both their medical bills and health plan premiums

Now in its seventh year, the report features qualitative market data collected by LHK Partners Incorporated, an independent marketing research company, to represent the sentiments of the key industry stakeholders: providers, payers and consumers. The report also represents quantitative data from the InstaMed Network, which includes $239 billion in healthcare payments volume from over two-thirds of the healthcare payments market.

“Our nationwide network connects providers, payers and consumers in all 50 states for the business of healthcare and processes billions of dollars in healthcare payments per month,” said Bill Marvin, President and CEO of InstaMed. “This unique vantage point combined with quantitative and qualitative data yield key insights in the healthcare payments market. For the past seven years, we have made the Trends Report available to the public at no cost to highlight the opportunities that exist to improve the healthcare payments experience for all stakeholders.”

About InstaMed
InstaMed is healthcare’s most trusted payments network, connecting providers, payers and consumers on one platform. The InstaMed Network connects over two-thirds of the market and processes tens of billions of dollars in healthcare payments annually. InstaMed reduces the risks, costs and complexities of working with multiple payment vendors by delivering one platform for all forms of payment in healthcare, designed and developed on one code base and supported by one onshore team of experts in healthcare payments. InstaMed enables providers to collect more money from patients and payers while reducing the cost and time to collect. InstaMed allows payers to cut settlement and disbursement costs with electronic payments and facilitate consumerism for their members. Visit InstaMed on the web at www.instamed.com.

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