As I travel around the country to attend HFMA chapter meetings, I often ask how many attendees have heard of HFMA’s PATIENT FRIENDLY BILLING project. I’m pleased to see a growing number of bands go up. My follow-up question-”Do you work for an organization that has embraced the Patient Friendly Billing philosophy?”–unfortunately gets a less affirmative response. Although many folks are familiar with HFMA’s efforts to focus the industry’s attention on this topic, apparently not everyone has jumped on the bandwagon to implement the: recommendations.

For those unfamiliar with this effort, Patient Friendly Billing is a collaborative endeavor of HFMA, the American Hospital Association, the Medical Croup Management Association, and select provider partners to promote clear, concise, and correct patient friendly financial correspondence. A team of talented volunteers has spent more than three years highlighting opportunities to improve the messages and information that we send to our patients via the patient billing process. This group began by sitting down with hospital and physician billing office staff to identify barriers to cresting patient-friendly communication. In addition, hospital software vendors were consulted to validate the find lugs and, more important, to be part of the solution. The team also formed focus groups of patients and family members to determine at what point during the process communication is preferred and, if so, what level of detail should be provided.