Only a small percentage of providers are receiving electronic payments and remittance advices, but more than 96 percent of respondents would like the option to settle claims electronically, according to a survey released by Payformance Corp. The study was distributed to 3,343 healthcare providers and was completed and returned by 542 respondents.

“Providers in the healthcare industry clearly want to settle claims electronically,” said Dwayne L. McAfee, president and CEO of Payformance. “Electronic claim settlement lowers provider costs, improves cash flow, and reduces payment disputes. In fact, providers can save as much as $2.94 per claim settled electronically by using the comprehensive solution from Payformance.”

For the healthcare industry to effectively transition to an electronic claim settlement approach and address the issues raised by the survey, there are three key actions that payers and providers should focus on:

• Payers - elevate the priority of transitioning to electronic claim settlement and put solutions in place to deliver EFT and ERA to all providers desiring electronic settlement.
• Providers - encourage all of their payers to offer EFT and ERA services.
• Providers - leverage inbound 835 ERA transactions to auto-post to their practice management systems, and avoid manual re-keying of remittance data.

The study also found that providers believe that electronic claims settlement will be the industry standard within three years, as 92 percent of the providers who responded either agreed or strongly agreed to the upcoming trend in healthcare.