In today’s world, it seems everywhere you turn businessesand individuals are increasing their efforts to go green and have a morepositive impact on the environment.  Fromhome appliances deemed energy-efficient with the “Energy-Star” logo tobusinesses starting up their own recycling programs, it is easy to see why somepeople might see the concept of “going green” as more of a trend than alifestyle.

And with this, when it comes to paperless billing andpayment, some people believe just that.  Thatpaperless billing and payment is merely a trend, another way for people to tryto follow the crowd in their efforts toward a greener world.

But  whether or notyou think going green is a trend, whether or not you are committed to making agreener lifestyle for yourself and your business, one thing should be agreedupon across the board –Paperless billing is more than a trend.

Our reasons for believing this are countless, just as ourreasons are countless as to why you and your business should make the switch(check out some of those reasons here.)

But one of the biggest reasons is because services likeSmartPay are web-based.  And the webcontinues to grow day by day.

The web has proven itself to be more than a trend.  According to an interview from Eric Schmidt,CEO of Google, the internet will continue to grow exponentially, especially dueto a “fundamental shift toward user-generated information that people willlisten to more than traditional sources.” Schmidt also commented on how realtime information is going to be key, as more and more consumers are growing toprefer and demand information and power at their fingertips.  And this is precisely what SmartPay gives you–literally.

Instead of waiting to receive a bill in the mail, writing acheck for that bill, sending it back through the mail and waiting for it toclear, customers check their e-mail and pay their bill or invoice with theclick of a mouse.  You can see why it ismore than a trend; it fits the growing demand for web-based applications onbehalf of consumers.  Since this demandwill only continue to grow as the internet also grows, day by day, month bymonth, and year by year, it is clear that web-based applications such asSmartPay are not phasing out anytime soon.

So if you believe “going green” is a trend, that isalright.  Everyone is entitled to theirown opinion, and I don’t think there’s ever been a time in history where everyonewas in agreement on a big social issue. 

When it comes down to it, paperless billing such as SmartPayis more than a trend.  But your hugebellbottom jeans and platform shoes from the ‘70s, or the mesh shirt you stillhave boxed up somewhere from the ‘80s? Now that’s a different story.

There's a new medical experiment going on, and it doesn't involve any mice.

A growing number of physicans have chosen to take up an insurance-free practice. These doctors refuse Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance, and bill patients directly.

Your first thought might be that this is a luxury service, but it doesn't end up working that way. Here's why:

The typical medical practice spends 65-70% on overhead, much of which is for the special and elaborate paperwork and negotiations involved in billing insurance. According to a survey in Health Affairs, the average American doctor spends 43 minutes a day on insurance paperwork, in addition to the support staff's time spent on it. This paperwork is for the insurance companies or Medicare/ Medicaid, not for the good of the patient or the practice -- and Health Affairs estimates the total cost at about $31 billion each year. 

The typical medical practice also does 90% of its work at pre-negotiated discounted fees. The insurance company negotiates lower prices on the services, and pays the doctors less. The patient's savings over private billing is based on their ability to pay the lower fees the insurance company has negotiated for them.

Physicians who switch to direct patient billing can lower their overhead and charge the discounted fees directly to the patients -- often ending up with a better bottom line than they have when the vast majority of their work is done through insurance.

Add electronic invoicing, which routinely improves collection of fees by 32% or more and reduces staff and storage requirements, and physicans can earn more  with a smaller staff and a smaller space. A more patient-centered practice, a less stressful office environment, and quality care for uninsured as well as insured patients are the results.

At present, just under 2% of U.S. physicans run insurance-free practices.  The number is growing, though. The experiment has been largely successful for those who've tried it, and some experts are suggesting that this new trend may solve the problem of shortages of medical professionals, as well as offering more affordable health care to patients.

As our population ages,medical professionals are increasing their training in the special needs of the elderly. Individuals with dementia or Alzheimers may be receiving care from spouses, sons, or daughters who are themselves elderly.

Unfortunately, billing practices don't always keep pace with these needs.

"Older people call us up in helpless confusion," says one office worker. "They don't know what any column means, whether it's a bill or not, or whether or not they need to send us money"

Helpers may be equally confused by bills and statements. 

"You can hear how distressed they are," the worker continued.

Often, paper bills are complex and confusing because of insurance requirements. 

Managing piles of paper bills can be confusing on its own. Elderly patients who rely on family members living in other towns may try to sort out the difficulties over the phone, and be defeated by the number of papers from different places, with different dates. 

One doctor found, in spite of her own knowledge base, that it was impossible for her to determine whether her elderly parents were having duplicate tests which they didn't need. She described the experience as "feeling like you're standing in a busy crossroads with no idea which direction to go in."

Electronic health records should, once they're perfected, help with these issues. Until then, electronic billing can already give a starting point. SmartPay bills, for example, have a clear interface that shows the patient's current balance immediately, and other details can be explored or excluded as needed, rather than being bunched together on a single page. Patients can choose to give a son or daughter or other helper access to the bills, rather than trying to find needed information on a paper bill and relaying it over the phone. And there is no need to file or keep track of paper bills -- nor to worry that some bills may have been mislaid.

Older patients who have difficulty actually paying the bill online can, with SmartPay, be assisted by the office to use phone payments instead.

The New York Times recently reported on the level of success medical practices are having in their shift to electronic billing.

There are two groups that are succeeding, according to the report. First, the largest companies. They often have insurance departments of their own, so the economic benefits are more immediately obvious. There are more people involved, too, and therefore there may be a higher tolerance for inefficiency and acceptance of a learning curve. Funds are in place to provide training and support -- and even motivation --  for months ahead of the switch. The organization may go a custom route and develop their own system, often including electronic record-keeping of various kinds in the process.

The image is one of a giant ocean liner steaming majestically, if slowly and in a cumbersome fashion, into a new direction.

The other group is the small practice. 75% of the doctors in the United States practice in groups of ten or fewer, a third in offices with only one or two doctors. Fargo has two major hospitals, and a higher concentration of physicians than more rural parts of North Dakota, but we still see most of our medical professionals in small practices. These practices have been successfully converting to electronic billing first, with the intention of shifting entirely to electronic record-keeping over time.

The New York Times describes these changes as "heroic." They're reporting offices in which the first step toward e-invoicing was the purchase of a computer. They're talking about months spent in training and in typing records into the new system. In fact, more than 90% of U.S. physicians are already online. With online electronic billing systems such as SmartPay, initial investments in software and in training are minimized.

Set-up of the system can certainly require quite a bit of data entry if all records have previously been kept on paper. However, we all have to admit that the all-paper office is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. If all an office's records are kept in physical files, then a switch to electronic billing gives the impetus to make a change that should have been made years ago. Even in offices where the only computer records of patients are in simple spreadsheets, transferring the data to a system like SmartPay is only a matter of importing files.

Feeling heroic yet?

Small practices may actually be better suited to making these necessary changes. Agility is one of the strengths of the small practice. A system like SmartPay, with costs based on the number of invoices sent out, is well-suited to a small office. Savings in time, postage, stationery, and collection efforts make the shift to e-invoicing a cost-effective one, and we don't think it really requires heroism.

Just smarts.

Recently we read about a veterinarian who installed electronic invoicing. She had a worker take a minute to review the charges at the end of the day.

This wouldn't be practical in an office that relied on paper billing. It might take half an hour to go through all the invoices, and there was no reason to think there was anything wrong. But it worked fine with an e-billing solution. It could be done in just a minute or two as part of the routine of closing up the office.

The vet had a big surprise coming. The office averaged $200 a month in missed billing.

You'd have been surprised, too, if you found something like that in your office.

But you can see how it could come about. Someone would call in with a question about a pet. The vet would ask for a stool sample. The pet owner would drop by with the sample, saying the vet had asked him to drop it off.

The person who received the sample wasn't necessarily the same one who had relayed the request from the vet. Still another person might prepare the sample to send to the lab. In a busy office, it could easily happen that no one realized the lab work hadn't been charged.

Several little errors like this could take place in the course of the month. By reviewing the charges at the end of the day, the vet's staff could catch them.

Add to these savings the savings on staff time, postage, and stationery, the quicker turnaround on receivables, and the reduction of stress and storage that come from a more paper-free office, and you can see that it adds up.

We don't know what e-billing system this vet used. But we can say for sure that SmartPay would cost less than the amount that she saved. Using SmartPay instead of paper invoices would, for this professional office, be free.

Let us calculate the ROI you could expect from using SmartPay in your business. Fill out our simple contact form and we'll call you.

We recently had a comment saying that medical professionals would soon have no choice of whether or not to bill electronically. With HIPAA and HITECH, the advantages of electronic billing for medical professionals seem overwhelming. We can't imagine why any medical office wouldn't choose to take advantage of the opportunity.

In fact,  SmartPay's paperless invoicing system has so many advantages that we can't really see why any office would hesitate.

But we wanted to know for sure, so we went to an insurance claims analyst at a national insurance company.

"It is true," the analyst assured us, "that we encourage electronic claims for the simplicity and quick turn around, but we always accept paper claims."

We guessed that it was good to have choices, but we were wondering whether, given the simplicity and quick turn around, they might not plan to refuse paper claims at some point in the future.