Horizon Health Offers Up-Front Cost Estimates, Discounts

Horizon Health has implemented a program that provides patients with up-front cost estimates and opportunities for discounts on many hospital-based services. This transparency provides pricing information before the service is performed.

“There’s a movement within healthcare to offer pricing transparency,” said Martin Adams, CFO and vice president of finance at Horizon Health. “While that’s a great goal, it’s much more difficult than it sounds. A patient’s out-of-pocket costs can vary, depending on his/her particular insurance company, plan, deductibles, copays, and other factors. This tool will enable us to work through all those details and provide patients with a thorough cost estimate.”

This service is now available for most hospital-based testing and procedures scheduled in advance. These include sleep studies, stress tests, EKGs, radiology services, surgical procedures, and more (labs are not included at this time). Additional services will continue to be added to the system throughout 2019. For a complete, up-to-date list of qualifying services, visit MyHorizonHealth.org/CostEstimate.

Providing up-front pricing information is made possible through partnership with Availity, a national software company that evaluates each patient’s individual insurance plan to estimate his/her out-of-pocket responsibility.

With this estimation program, Horizon Health will offer discounts up to 30 percent.

• A 30 percent discount is applied to the patient’s portion of the fee if paid prior to, or the day of, the service.
• A 15 percent discount is applied to the patient’s portion of the fee if paid within 30 days of the invoice date.
• At day 35, the bill is sent to Horizon Health’s payment partners to work with the patient to establish a payment plan.

Note that this new service will modify the registration process. Patient Services staff will now ask for co-pays, past balances, and projected patient responsibility amounts at the time of scheduling and/or time of service.

“We understand how uncomfortable financial discussions can be,” said Elisha Farmer, project manager for the new service. “However, our goal is to help patients better understand their healthcare, including their financial responsibilities. Offering detailed information up-front and with as much clarity as possible is a benefit to our patients.”

For more information on this topic, call Central Scheduling at (217) 466-4343. Please leave a thorough message and a patient services representative will return your call.