For immediate release – July 16, 2008
Contact: Dan Branyon, 864-725-4134
dbranyon@selfregional.org

 

Billing at Self Regional Healthcare will become more patient friendly starting July 21, 2008.

In response to patient feedback and following 18 months of research and planning, Self Regional’s Patient Financial Services is introducing newly designed bills so that patients can easily understand the charges, insurance payments and their responsibility.

 “Some hospital bills include non-essential information that only serves to confuse patients,” noted Camie Patterson, the hospital’s Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. “Our goal was to make things simpler with a more friendly bill that eliminates jargons and abbreviations. We wanted to clearly identify what type of service the bill is for, to clearly identify important information like the account number and balance due, and to also include a simple legend on back to define key terms.”

Patterson said the new hospital bills also include a reference to other provider billing phone numbers and are printed in larger type to improve appearance and readability.

A review team consisting of members of the community as well as representatives from a variety of hospital departments came up with ideas for the new bill, which will be issued beginning July 21. The team looked at the billing process from the patient’s perspective and then shared ideas to help make Self Regional billing friendlier to patients. “Our statements are revised to better serve the needs of our patients,” Patterson added. “We thank them as well as our review team for their suggestions on how to make this process clear, concise and correct.”

Please familiarize yourself with the new billing formats by clicking on the links below.

To see a sample of the new billing statement for insured patients, click here. 

To see a sample of the new billing statement for self-pay patients, click here.