Helping Providers Improve Revenue Cycle Management w/ PatientPay CEO, Tom Furr | HealthBiz Briefs

Both patients and providers are more than familiar with the headaches associated with collecting payments.

But what solutions are there that support both patients and providers?

In this episode of HealthBiz Briefs, Tom Furr, CEO of PatientPay reveals how things like the Affordable Care Act are driving out-of-pocket costs and what the solutions are for supporting providers in collections without damaging patient opinions in the process.

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/caretalk and get on your way to being your best self.

As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the links provided.

🎙️⚕️ABOUT CARETALK
CareTalk is a weekly podcast that provides an incisive, no B.S. view of the US healthcare industry. Join co-hosts John Driscoll (President U.S. Healthcare and EVP, Walgreens Boots Alliance) and David Williams (President, Health Business Group) as they debate the latest in US healthcare news, business and policy.

🎙️⚕️ ABOUT TOM FURR
Tom Furr is a seasoned entrepreneur and industry leader with a wealth of experience in the healthcare and technology sectors. Before establishing PatientPay, Tom held pivotal roles at MobileSmith Health, where he served as Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), and a Board member. His strategic leadership and operational expertise played a crucial role in driving the company's growth and innovation.

Tom's entrepreneurial journey began with Kinetics, Inc., a pioneering online commerce provider focused on serving small businesses. As a co-founder and president of Kinetics, Tom spearheaded initiatives that established the company as a key player in the early days of online commerce. Under his leadership, Kinetics formed strategic partnerships with major players such as Wells Fargo, First Union, and Netscape, further solidifying its position in the market.

🎙️⚕️ ABOUT PATIENTPAY
PatientPay offers comprehensive patient payment solutions tailored to the needs of patients, medical groups, hospitals, and revenue cycle management (RCM) companies. As a leading end-to-end solution, PatientPay addresses the financial complexities of specialty healthcare, partnering with medical groups and RCM firms to streamline patient payments throughout the care process.
With the rise of patients as major healthcare consumers in the U.S., PatientPay supports specialty services such as labs, radiology, and anesthesiology in improving payment collection efficiency. The platform enhances payment capture through patient-friendly statements aligned with Explanation of Benefits (EOB), flexible payment options, and streamlined billing workflows.

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Transcript

0:06

This episode of Care Talk is brought to you by BetterHelp. If you've been thinking about starting therapy, there's never been a better time to give it a try. BetterHelp offers online therapy that's accessible, flexible, and tailored to your needs. Whether you're dealing with stress, anxiety, or just looking for personal growth, BetterHelp connects you with licensed therapists who can support you on your journey to becoming your best self. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp .com slash care talk to get 10 % off your first month and take the first step toward improving your mental wellbeing. That's betterhelp, H -E -L -P dot com slash care talk. Welcome to Health Biz Briefs. I'm David Williams, president of Health Business Group here with Tom Furr, founder and CEO of PatientPay. The company helps providers collect what they're owed without alienating their patients. Welcome Tom. Hey, David, thanks for having me. Why do providers have challenges collecting patient payments and how does patient pay help? So medical groups, hospitals have been raised having to really focus on their insurance payments, not patient payments. I mean, it wasn't too long ago when patient payments were a small part of their revenue. And so they've implemented lots of technology on the back end to help with their insurance payments. Unfortunately, they haven't done the same on the patient payment side. they, there's still a lot of paper statements that people send out. They will hope you mail back maybe a check. They will maybe give you access to a portal that's normally hard to log into, hard to pay. And so what PatientPay has done is to help these medical groups and hospitals. enable technology that's very similar to what you do today on Amazon or any other places that are out there. So we give these folks the ability to get data out of their systems easy and efficiently, create a bill that's easy for the patient to understand. We built our system around the patient so that if multiple groups or patients go into multiple different groups, they can get all of their bills in one place. and can pay them with the same credit card or HSA card. in essence, what we've done is we it's not really rocket science, but we've taken what's out in the market outside of health care and moved it into health care so that patients have the same experience in health care as they have outside of health care. And by default, we can raise collections by 50 to 100 percent. Seventy percent of the payments being made through patient payer done through the mobile device. So we're seeing all of the type results that you would see outside of healthcare now move into healthcare. So it sounds great. And my question then is why is patient pay merging with ClearGage? So patient pay has a great billing and payments platform, but they did not have an estimation and eligibility solution. They did not have a pay fact solution. So ClearGage had the ability to bring us some technology we didn't have, which includes the estimation and eligibility, the payback. They also were in different markets than we were, but very similar. So they were in chiropractor, we were in PT. They were in a couple of different areas. We were in radiology. So the ability to leverage each other to become bigger and better. really made total sense when you look at it both as standalone companies versus most both coming together. And so we're very pleased that we're able we were able to put together a deal. We're very pleased to start working with folks at ClearGauge to offer our respective solutions to the market. And and we're having good response so far, not only from our existing clients, their existing clients, but new ones that have been calling in to us. What's different about the patient? payment environment now compared to say 15 years ago or so when you started up the company? Yeah, so pre Affordable Care Act, we used to hear, you know, I write off patient payments, I don't really need to them. I just need some piece of paper out because the government says I need to send at least two piece of paper out. I don't know if that's fact or fiction, but that was kind of the response that we would get. And so today, post -affordable care act, the high deductible plans that patients are signing up for with their insurance company are driving more out of pocket dollars. And it can be 20 or even 30 % of their total income that they get from patients. So when you write off 20 or 30 % of your cash that's coming in, it becomes a cashflow issue. And so what we've seen is that people are now, medical groups, hospitals are waking up to the need of offering solutions that are very similar to the market to help them collect more of those dollars but still have a good experience with the patient. And you collect more of those dollars by having a bill that you can understand. Hopefully you can append the EOB like we do with the bill. You have it easy to pay, as I said, 70 % of the payments that we get on our platform are done to the mobile device. So if you offer payment plans, you do all the things that you would expect to do. Easy to understand, easy to pay, you get more payments. And not only do you get more payments, but you get patients that are happy. You know, they're not upset about getting a bill and being shocked or surprised that they got the bill. They're having challenges paying it, or they got a call during office hours to pay it. You kind of have to meet patients where they are, in our opinion, with easy to use solutions. That's it for the latest Health Biz Brief. If you like what you hear, Check out my Health Biz podcast for a full -length interview with Tom about his life and career. Tom Furr, CEO and founder of PatientPay, thanks for joining me on the latest Health Biz Briefs. Thanks, David.