Savista to Launch Patient Debt Awareness Day

Savista to Launch Patient Debt Awareness Day to Combat the Rising Medical Debt Crisis Impacting Patients and Providers

 

(Alpharetta, GA) April 5, 2023

 

In response to the current medical debt crisis in the U.S., Savista, a healthcare revenue cycle management services company, is launching Patient Debt Awareness Day on April 19, 2023. This event will host activities to inform, educate and support both the patient and healthcare providers in how to use eligibility services and patient revenue cycle education to navigate and minimize self-pay debt. Patient Debt Awareness Day will coincide with National Public Health Week in April and the ending of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) legislature in May.

 

Since the year 2000, hospitals have provided $745 billion in uncompensated care to their patients. The combination of increased high-deductible plans and many without insurance has made self-pay a difficult payer group for providers to manage. Unlike other payers, each outstanding balance must be resolved with each patient individually, costing up to 4x more for the provider to collect. Providers have limited resources to effectively manage patient liability, and this continues to be a significant financial burden on the entire U.S. healthcare system.

 

In addition, the Public Health Emergency legislature, implemented to provide Medicaid coverage during the height of the COVID pandemic and bolster patient access, begins to unwind in April and is coming to an end in May. An estimated 18M Americans are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage, and recent studies show that most patients are unaware this deadline is approaching. This will only serve to increase both the medical debt for patients and medical debt owed to providers, which may then result in additional uncompensated care and an overburdened revenue cycle.

 

Savista's Patient Debt Awareness Day aims to bring much-needed focus to this problem through patient access education and a series of events spanning over a month. It is an opportunity to educate and empower patients to make informed decisions about their care and better understand their options for resolving medical debt. Likewise, providers will receive tools to help alleviate medical debt stress, enhance patients' access to care, and ensure they are adequately compensated for care.

 

Savista’s Patient Debt Awareness activities will include:

 

- Downloadable educational materials at patientdebtday.com which include: a whitepaper about how providers can transform the patient financial journey through a holistic balance-management program, a guide for providers about the end of PHE, and patient-facing education about what the ending of PHE means to them and how to seek re-enrollment.

 

- An in-person eligibility fair in partnership with a healthcare system to help educate patients about the ending of the PHE and to begin the Medicaid re-enrollment process to get them much needed coverage.

 

- A series of webinars with the eligibility, enrollment, and revenue cycle staff at provider facilities to discuss patient debt challenges, provide guidance on the ending of PHE, and share innovative strategies teams can employ to improve financial outcomes and resolve self-pay debt. Links to view these webinars will be available to all providers at patientdebtday.com.

 

“Our goal is to change the narrative with Patient Debt Awareness Day through education, support and on-the-ground efforts. We hope this is the beginning of an industry-wide effort to aggressively seek solutions to this mounting problem,” said Jan Grimm, CEO Savista.

 

For more information about Patient Debt Day, please visit: www.patientdebtday.com.

 

 

About Savista

 

Savista is a prominent provider of healthcare revenue cycle management services, partnering with hospitals, systems, and physician practices for more than 30 years. They solve revenue cycle challenges through comprehensive audits and assessments and expert staffing solutions that span eligibility and enrollment, CDM, coding, AR and more. Savista touts one of the most highly trained workforces in the industry with more than 20+ accreditations including Epic-certified trainers. Savista’s global organization delivers quality custom solutions to more than 330 healthcare clients at 770+ facilities across 49 states and recently received their Peer Review designation by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).