Patient Financial Experience 2020
Driving Additional Revenue by Improving the Financial Experience

Flywire, Patientco, RevSpring Most Established in Market; Patientco Leads with Consistent Customer Experience

Patientco, who scales across customers of all sizes and revenue levels, is described as highly engaged in making sure customers succeed and as highly responsive when concerns or problems arise. They listen to client requests and also proactively reach out with offers to help. RevSpring scales to both small and large customers, who highlight the vendor’s broad, omni-channel functionality and strategic use of print/digital statements, which have been complemented by updates to the digital platform. Clients using recent upgrades report a dramatic improvement in satisfaction. Flywire feedback comes from Flywire customers—who are mostly smaller, standalone organizations—as well as legacy Simplee customers (acquired in early 2020), who include many larger clients. The solutions deliver much of the functionality customers need and enable them to receive patient feedback regarding financial concerns.

Patientco customers are very happy with their vendor’s patient engagement efforts, describing Patientco as a partner that is highly engaged in improving the patient financial experience. VisitPay is highlighted for their analytics and reporting, which customers say facilitate better understanding of and better interactions with patients. Cedar customers appreciate that their technology can be custom tailored to the patient, helping improve the overall experience. Feedback on Flywire (combined) and RevSpring—the vendors with the largest, most diverse customer bases—is more mixed but is still positive overall. Customers say their technology simplifies the payment process and has been commented positively on by patients.

Customized messaging allows provider organizations to more thoughtfully and effectively connect with their patients. VisitPay customers say the vendor has worked extensively to supply them with messaging tools that cover every scenario and has helped them optimize these tools, which they describe as adaptable and functional. Cedar’s engagement platform learns the message times and cadence that will most likely yield a response from any given patient and increase that patient’s probability of making a payment. Flywire (combined) and RevSpring customers both report that their messaging capabilities meet their expectations and can be adapted to patient behavior. However, customers of both would like additional input and help from their vendor in optimizing the capabilities.

Quality Staff and Strategic Abilities from AccessOne, CarePayment & ClearBalance Get Results and Preserve the Patient Experience

Having high-quality staff is crucial to the success of any services engagement. In the financial experience market, strategic ability (including tools, reports, and engagement methods used to drive outcomes) is also important. All firms in this report do well in both areas. AccessOne clients say the firm has a courteous, professional staff and stays abreast of engagement best practices and new technology, driving increased collections. CarePayment clients highlight the vendor’s ability to report each account’s progress and slice data in any way needed. Additionally, clients are pleased with the professionalism of the staff and how they interact with patients. ClearBalance HealthCare clients report strong satisfaction overall, praising the firm’s ability to assess organizational needs and establish clear ROI expectations. They feel the firm has innovative collection methodologies. Feedback regarding staff quality is varied—those who are less satisfied had negative experiences with staff quality in the past; while they acknowledge many significant improvements, their perceptions of the firm have not completely recovered.

AccessOne, CarePayment & ClearBalance Partner with Clients Beyond the Traditional Vendor Relationship

All client bases in this research report high satisfaction with their firm/client relationship. AccessOne clients describe their firm as a strong partner that is willing to go the extra mile to meet needs and has a strategic focus on the future. CarePayment clients say the firm often goes above and beyond to partner with them. CarePayment schedules frequent points of contact to make sure clients’ needs are listened to and acted on and to provide visibility into the firm’s collection efforts and the client’s revenue operations. ClearBalance HealthCare has partnered with clients to more proactively reach out and ensure clients’ ROI expectations are being met. Clients say ClearBalance has put increased focus on understanding clients’ needs and doing what it takes to improve their revenue collection.

Some CarePayment Clients Report Lower Perceptions of Value

None of the metrics examined above matter if real results aren’t achieved. ClearBalance HealthCare excels in driving outcomes. Clients receive more patient payments and say the firm finds ways to work with patients who might not otherwise pay. And they do this while earning positive reviews from patients. Similarly, AccessOne clients say patients view the firm not as a collections agency but as a partner who works with them to find payment solutions. Clients also feel AccessOne is up front about costs, so there is no confusion when the client organization receives the bill. CarePayment rates a bit lower when it comes to driving outcomes and avoiding charging for every little thing. While clients feel CarePayment keeps commitments (and even guarantees to hit certain financial metrics or pay the difference), a number feel the firm didn’t adequately explain costs up front, leading them to view the services as expensive. Others note that their implementation was not tailored well to their specific needs; as a result, they had to rework internal processes when they found it would be cheaper to handle some accounts themselves.

What Does “Limited Data” Mean? 

Some products or services are used in only a small number of facilities, some vendors are resistant to providing client lists, and some respondents choose not to answer particular questions. Thus a vendor’s sample size may vary from question to question and may not reach the threshold of unique respondents KLAS requires for data to be shared.

When a vendor’s sample size for a particular question is less than 15, the score for that question is marked with an asterisk (*) or otherwise designated as “limited data.” If the sample size is less than 6, no score is shown. Note that when a vendor has a low number of reporting sites, the possibility exists for KLAS scores to change significantly as new surveys are collected.

Overall scores are measured on a 100-point scale and represent the weighted average of several yes/no questions as well as other questions scored on a 9-point scale.