The Patient Friendly Billing Project

About the Project

The PATIENT FRIENDLY BILLING ® project is a collaborative endeavor spearheaded by HFMA to promote clear, concise, and correct patient-friendly financial communications. 

• Purpose and Philosophy
• Sponsors and Supporting Organizations
• How You Can Help

What's New

• Standards of Excellence. The Patient Friendly Billing project's new phase, Standards of Excellence, is studying  a group of high-performing hospitals to identify common revenue cycle processes and other characteristics that drive value at high-performing hospitals.  View a presentation from the 2009 ANI: The Healthcare Finance Conference introducing the Standards of Excellence phase, including preliminary findings from hospital interviews.
• Patient Friendly Billing Recommended Practice: Early, Transparent Financial Communications. Addresses patients’ rights to understand and prepare for their financial obligation at the earliest point possible in the care experience.

Patient Friendly Billing Newsletter

HFMA's Patient Friendly Billing newsletter provides practical how-to strategies and information for improving patient financial communications, achieving transparent pricing, and creating a more patient friendly revenue cycle. View the current issue (May 2009; HFMA members only).

The Patient Friendly Billing newsletter is sponsored by:

Project Reports

• Reconstructing Hospital Pricing Systems  (Summer 2007) 
• Consumerism in Health Care -- Achieve a Consumer-Oriented Revenue Cycle (Summer 2006)
• Hospitals Share Insights to Improve Financial Policies for Uninsured and Underinsured Patients (Feb. 2005)

Additional Project Resources

• Ready-to-Use Presentations--based on Patient Friendly Billing project reports
• Breaking the "Wicked" Healthcare Barriers--proceedings from a 2008 HFMA Revenue Cycle Conference keynote session on building a positive patient experience through effective strategies and communications
• Timeless Resources for Improving Your Revenue Cycle
• Case Studies--learn how hospitals and health systems are achieving meaningful price transparency and working with patients on setting payment expectations and terms 
• Pricing Tools

PATIENT FRIENDLY BILLING® is a proprietary trademark of Healthcare Financial Management Association, Copyright© 2005-2009, Healthcare Financial Management Association, All Rights Reserved.