Guest guest Posted September 9, 2010 Report Share Posted September 9, 2010 Hiten- They're not necessarily canceling; they are hesitating to even schedule in the first place! There seems to be a shift going on from the family practice physician being the gate keeper of the medical care to the wallet of the customer becoming the gate keeper. By increasing the co-pays (so the medical insurers argue) the patient will think twice before accessing medical care. It seems to be working! How do we respond? We need to advocate (advertise) to our patients the value of our service and that the $20 to $40 is more than worth it! Rene van Doorn, PT, MTC Seattle From: hitendave@... Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 11:36 AM To: PTManager Subject: Patient Cancellations To the Group: Was just wondering if any of you are seeing a very scary trend lately of patients cancelling appointments as they cannot afford copays? Copays have been in the neighborhood of $20 to $40. In the 25 years of my practise I am seeing it more lately. Would like to know from PTs country-wide. Thanks. Hiten Dave' PT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 9, 2010 Report Share Posted September 9, 2010 Hi Dave, Definitely. This has been happening more since the recession took hold but also remember that co-pays by design were probably instituted so patients self-limited rehab services. As a small practice we can be flexible at offering payment options, which has helped. We also educate clients on the consequences of limiting PT (when needed). We do more instruction in home programs for those limiting their care due to cost. We do the best we can to get clients to stay and the best we can when they decide they can't afford to continue. That is all that we can do. Tom Howell, P.T., M.P.T. Howell Physical Therapy Eagle, ID thowell@... This email and any files transmitted with it may contain PRIVILEGED or CONFIDENTIAL information and may be read or used only by the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient of the email or any of its attachments, please be advised that you have received this email in error and that any use, dissemination, distribution, forwarding, printing or copying of this email or any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately purge it and all attachments and notify the sender by reply email. _____ From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On Behalf Of hitendave@... Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 12:37 PM To: PTManager Subject: Patient Cancellations To the Group: Was just wondering if any of you are seeing a very scary trend lately of patients cancelling appointments as they cannot afford copays? Copays have been in the neighborhood of $20 to $40. In the 25 years of my practise I am seeing it more lately. Would like to know from PTs country-wide. Thanks. Hiten Dave' PT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 9, 2010 Report Share Posted September 9, 2010 We aim to achieve an immediate change on the first visit so that the patient appreciates the value of PT. Getting the patient in the door to start with is the bigger problem, especially given the prevalence of sky high deductibles. Karl Bebendorf PT, OCS Denver, CO Subject: Patient Cancellations To: " PTManager " <PTManager > Date: Thursday, September 9, 2010, 1:36 PM  To the Group: Was just wondering if any of you are seeing a very scary trend lately of patients cancelling appointments as they cannot afford copays? Copays have been in the neighborhood of $20 to $40. In the 25 years of my practise I am seeing it more lately. Would like to know from PTs country-wide. Thanks. Hiten Dave' PT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 9, 2010 Report Share Posted September 9, 2010 Group, I appreciated the latest posting on this topic, giving patients a quality experience makes the difference - for their treatment attendance AND for getting the next patient (their circle of friends/family) to schedule with you or even another PT when referred. See the latest ADVANCE PT/Rehab issue (there is an article on this topic). I have been touting the need for a value-added experience in each PT session for some time and even teach a con-ed course on minimizing cancellations/maximizing efficiency. Mike Studer,PT,MHS,NCS, CEEAA President, Northwest Rehabilitation Associates Inc. Serving You With Specialist Care and a Personal Touch Phone: Fax: mike@... www.northwestrehab.com  We aim to achieve an immediate change on the first visit so that the patient appreciates the value of PT. Getting the patient in the door to start with is the bigger problem, especially given the prevalence of sky high deductibles. Karl Bebendorf PT, OCS Denver, CO Subject: Patient Cancellations To: " PTManager " <PTManager > Date: Thursday, September 9, 2010, 1:36 PM  To the Group: Was just wondering if any of you are seeing a very scary trend lately of patients cancelling appointments as they cannot afford copays? Copays have been in the neighborhood of $20 to $40. In the 25 years of my practise I am seeing it more lately. Would like to know from PTs country-wide. Thanks. Hiten Dave' PT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 13, 2010 Report Share Posted September 13, 2010 Dave: It is happening more and more at our outpatient hospital based clinic in Colorado as well. Some of our HMO clients are paying up to $60 copays. Sperry, PT, OCS From: hitendave@... Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 12:37 PM To: PTManager Subject: Patient Cancellations To the Group: Was just wondering if any of you are seeing a very scary trend lately of patients cancelling appointments as they cannot afford copays? Copays have been in the neighborhood of $20 to $40. In the 25 years of my practise I am seeing it more lately. Would like to know from PTs country-wide. Thanks. Hiten Dave' PT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 13, 2010 Report Share Posted September 13, 2010 Seems like I got a lot of responses from PTs around the country and yes....we do have a problem with higher co-pays and lesser patient visits This is insurance company's tactics of " making the patient responsible for ther care " . Anyone has suggestions how we can deal with this problem or is it hopeless? Hiten Dave' PT Patient Cancellations To the Group: Was just wondering if any of you are seeing a very scary trend lately of patients cancelling appointments as they cannot afford copays? Copays have been in the neighborhood of $20 to $40. In the 25 years of my practise I am seeing it more lately. Would like to know from PTs country-wide. Thanks. Hiten Dave' PT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 14, 2010 Report Share Posted September 14, 2010 The current trend is definitely to shift more cost to the patient as demonstrated in the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust 2010 Employer Health Benefit Survey located here ==> http://ehbs.kff.org/. You can see another article about that study at Health Affairs here ==> http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.2010.0725. Both point out what we have all experienced in that employers are passing more of the cost of coverage on to their employees in the form of higher premiums. The amount of cost sharing for health care services consumed is also rising in the form of higher co-pays and deductibles. This is part of the theory that part of the reason for our runaway cost inflation in healthcare is because the customer (patient) was insulated from the cost in years past, so in order to control utilization the patient should have more responsibility for the cost. Based on what I have seen in our clinics and in other PTManager posts, it seems to be working in that patients are questioning not only how many visits to consume but whether to come to therapy at all. We have responded in our outpatient clinics with the therapists having conversations with patients on the first visit to be sure patients understand the value of the PT/OT/SLP services they will be purchasing. So many people still aren't fully aware of how we can help them, so it's up to us to tell them. If they leave the eval appointment baffled then the probability of them being a repeat customer with a $50 per visit co-pay is low. Then on every subsequent visit we try to communicate to the patient what the patient will do in the next visit that is different from what they did in this visit. That way the patient hopefully sees a progression and not just the same thing from visit to visit. Our assumption is that patients will be happy to pay for improvement, but will become hostile to paying for the same thing done repeatedly. Mark Dwyer, PT, MHA Director of Rehabilitation Services Olathe Medical Center Olathe, KS markdwyer87@... Re: Patient Cancellations Posted by: " hitendave@... " hitendave@... Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:24 am (PDT) Seems like I got a lot of responses from PTs around the country and yes....we do have a problem with higher co-pays and lesser patient visits This is insurance company's tactics of " making the patient responsible for ther care " . Anyone has suggestions how we can deal with this problem or is it hopeless? Hiten Dave' PT Patient Cancellations To the Group: Was just wondering if any of you are seeing a very scary trend lately of patients cancelling appointments as they cannot afford copays? Copays have been in the neighborhood of $20 to $40. In the 25 years of my practise I am seeing it more lately. Would like to know from PTs country-wide. Thanks. Hiten Dave' PT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 17, 2010 Report Share Posted September 17, 2010 A quick follow-up to this thread on cancellations. There is a good article about reducing cancellations by focusing on quality and value-added services in the September 6, 2010 ADVANCE for Physical Therapy & Rehab Medicine by Mike Studer, PT, MHS, NCS, CEEAA. It is on pages 18-22. You can also find it here --> http://physical-therapy.advanceweb.com/Archives/Article-Archives/Maximizing-Effi\ ciency.aspx. Mark Dwyer, PT, MHA Director of Rehabilitation Services Olathe Medical Center Olathe, KS markdwyer87@... > > The current trend is definitely to shift more cost to the patient as demonstrated in the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust 2010 Employer Health Benefit Survey located here ==> http://ehbs.kff.org/. You can see another article about that study at Health Affairs here ==> http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.2010.0725. > > Both point out what we have all experienced in that employers are passing more of the cost of coverage on to their employees in the form of higher premiums. The amount of cost sharing for health care services consumed is also rising in the form of higher co-pays and deductibles. > > This is part of the theory that part of the reason for our runaway cost inflation in healthcare is because the customer (patient) was insulated from the cost in years past, so in order to control utilization the patient should have more responsibility for the cost. Based on what I have seen in our clinics and in other PTManager posts, it seems to be working in that patients are questioning not only how many visits to consume but whether to come to therapy at all. > > We have responded in our outpatient clinics with the therapists having conversations with patients on the first visit to be sure patients understand the value of the PT/OT/SLP services they will be purchasing. So many people still aren't fully aware of how we can help them, so it's up to us to tell them. If they leave the eval appointment baffled then the probability of them being a repeat customer with a $50 per visit co-pay is low. Then on every subsequent visit we try to communicate to the patient what the patient will do in the next visit that is different from what they did in this visit. That way the patient hopefully sees a progression and not just the same thing from visit to visit. Our assumption is that patients will be happy to pay for improvement, but will become hostile to paying for the same thing done repeatedly. > > Mark Dwyer, PT, MHA > Director of Rehabilitation Services > Olathe Medical Center > Olathe, KS > markdwyer87@... > > > Re: Patient Cancellations > Posted by: " hitendave@... " hitendave@... > Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:24 am (PDT) > > Seems like I got a lot of responses from PTs around the country and yes....we do have a problem with higher co-pays and lesser patient visits This is insurance company's tactics of " making the patient responsible for ther care " . Anyone has suggestions how we can deal with this problem or is it hopeless? > > Hiten Dave' PT > Patient Cancellations > > To the Group: > > Was just wondering if any of you are seeing a very scary trend lately of > patients cancelling appointments as they cannot afford copays? Copays have > been in the neighborhood of $20 to $40. In the 25 years of my practise I am > seeing it more lately. Would like to know from PTs country-wide. > > Thanks. > > Hiten Dave' PT > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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