How Optum and PatientPay are Helping Providers Reclaim Patient Payments

Faced with ever-tightening operational margin, providers are under the gun to ensure no stone goes unturned on the reimbursement front. That’s why many would be elated to discover that they may be missing patient payments that could improve cash flow.

It’s no secret that patients are seeking frictionless, convenient healthcare financial experiences. This increased demand is part of what is driving rapid adoption of simple, app-free digital billing like that offered by PatientPay. Notably, health plans and Health Savings Account (HSA) providers are making the switch as well, which means that patients are increasingly paying their copays through insurance and HSA portals.

What does this mean for providers?

While those copays belong to you, there is a lengthy, and often painstaking, process associated with transfer of the funds that slows collections. Health plans and HSAs typically route the payment through an intermediary, where it is processed and remitted to the provider via check or virtual card. But this process can take weeks, and because this is done outside of EHR or practice management workflows, reconciliation becomes a nightmare.  

Consider the impact of having to collect even 500 copays through a clearing house monthly: Manual, paper-based processes can result in hundreds of dollars in paper processing and postage, not to mention thousands of dollars in labor costs.

The Good News: PatientPay Plus Optum

Optum Financial and Patient are hitting this challenge head-on through a co-developed integration with PatientPay Accelerate, providing a bridge between insurance/HSA collected payment and cleared revenue. Through this collaboration, Optum presents a clear view of patient copays to providers for quick, direct payment. Funds are auto-processed based on provider preferences and posted directly to a bank account.

The integration of PatientPay Accelerate is part of Optum’s greater vision to modernize healthcare payment delivery, improve patient financial experiences and position the company as a fintech leader. In a recent article, Brian Andrews, Senior VP of payer-to-provider payments at Optum Financial, notes, “Our partnerships with Rectangle Health and PatientPay play a key role in delivering these consumer payment innovations. These collaborations enhance the patient payment experience and align with our vision of becoming a fintech leader in healthcare, rather than simply a payment processor.”

For PatientPay, it’s one more way we are fulfilling our mission to make healthcare payment easier for all stakeholders. Early results from the integration suggest we are succeeding. More than 700 healthcare organizations using PatientPay Accelerate to streamline their patient payment process have realized:

• Up to 72% reduction in staff hours spent on patinet payments
• 2 to 3 weeks faster cash flow
• 94% of organizations see time savings within the first 30 days

One of those groups, Alpine Physician Partners, leverages PatientPay Accelerate for insurance-collected payments which has sped up payments by more than 40 days. The tool also significantly reduces the administrative burden of payment posting for their staff, reducing the cost of collections by approximately $4,780 per 1,000 payments.  

Getting started is easy – no IT required and no upfront costs. For more information on PatientPay Accelerate and the new Optum integration, visit PatientPay + Optum | Accelerating Patient Payments Together.

Supplemental reading:

Read more about how PatientPay helped Alpine Physician Partners double its revenue and collections in just 3 months: Alpine Physician Partners | PatientPay Success Stories