Report: Hospitals struggle to collect payments from commercial insurers

One in three inpatient claims submitted by providers to commercial insurers in first quarter 2023 weren鈥檛 paid for over three months and 15% of inpatient and outpatient claims were initially denied, according to data from over 1,800 hospitals and 200,000 physicians analyzed by Crowe Revenue Cycle Analytics. That鈥檚 nearly three times the number of claims delayed that long in traditional Medicare and over four times the initial denial rate for traditional Medicare claims over the period, the found. It also found that eight cents of every dollar providers bill to commercial insurers will never be received or will be taken back once received.
鈥淧roviders feel that they are being forced to jump through hoops and undergo labor-intensive processes in order to receive payment, especially from commercial payors,鈥 Colleen Hall, managing principal of the healthcare group at Crowe. 鈥淒uring a time when labor shortages persist and expenses continue to rise, hospitals鈥 believe that their time and resources should be spent directly on patient care rather than managing increasingly bureaucratic reimbursement issues with insurers.鈥