Keith Loria

home

authors

keith-loria

 for patients, regardless of what type of health insurance coverage they have, is a challenge that millions of Americans face when dealing with health issues.

A 2020 report from the Commonwealth Fund found that 1% of Americans under age 64 spent $5,000 or more out of pocket for medical services, and 5% spent more than $1,700. Deductibles in employer-sponsored plans 

 in the decade from 2008 to 2017, federal data show.


That’s why CarePayment, a patient financing company that partners with providers to offer patients 0.00% APR financing, came about.

The company was founded in 2004, but hit the restart button in 2012, primarily because it saw an opportunity to address the affordability gap in healthcare, as costs began started to shift from the payer to the consumer. A Transunion study found that 

 payments grew 52% from 2012 to 2017, and a third of hospitals have more than $10 million in bad debt.

“That increased the financial burden on the consumer/patient,” says Ed Caldwell, CarePayment’s CEO. “That manifests itself in two ways. One was patients who became saddled with medical bills they didn’t expect and can’t pay; the second was patients avoiding needed care due to the costs they couldn’t afford, which can result in a more catastrophic case somewhere down the road.”

Both outcomes were suboptimal for both the patient and provider, and coupled with the limited competition in the space, the CarePayment team felt it had a solution that far outpaced those of its competitors.


“We are the only player in the patient financing space that offers a zero percent interest program to the patient who asks for a long-term payment plan, and a pre-bad debt solution for those who are non-responsive to their provider’s attempt to collect an amount due after their care,” Caldwell says. “The end result of all of this is our ability to drive an unparalleled patient experience, along with a return on investment that’s really intently focused on collecting from patients who otherwise would have ended up in bad debt.”

Everyone qualifies, regardless of credit, and the company offers a white-glove approach to the patient collection process, which, along with the affordable payment options, creates an industry-leading and unique patient experience.

“We are so confident in our approach to the problem and the ROI we can drive for our provider clients, that we contractually guarantee a positive financial result,” Caldwell says.

The company primarily plays in the hospital space, with more than 90% of customers and clients coming from hospital or acute care. About 25% of the approximate 5,800 hospitals across the country that have formerly chosen a financing vendor that specializes in patient financing to help them solve the problem.

“Including us, there are really four major patient financing vendors, though some new competitors are making noise in the industry,” Caldwell says. “CarePayment is the largest of the four in terms of annual loans offered to patients.”

Transforming the Patient Experience Digitally

Today, there’s more of an opportunity to optimize the patient engagement and financial experience through digital means.

CarePayment is leading the effort on that front, with solutions now available through Epic’s App Orchard with MyChart integration, helping to digitally transform the patient experience, drive increased patient satisfaction and make things easy for hospital or health system staff.

The integration of MyChart offers a digital-first experience that allows a patient to see their balance in MyChart, inquire about long-term payment plan options with CarePayment, how to pay over time and view the monthly payment and term length if they choose the program. The patient is fully informed and can make a payment decision quickly and without staff intervention.

Yet, this is just one way the company is helping providers digitally transform the patient

experience, as not every patient is comfortable in a digital only environment. Seniors, who are high utilizers of healthcare, have told the company they want high touch but with human support when needed, including the ability to call CarePayment’s in-house customer support team with questions.

“You have to have a robust, comprehensive platform to meet patients where they are because healthcare consumers are incredibly diverse, and their engagement and payment support needs are diverse,” Caldwell says. “Our focus at CarePayment is to make it easy for all patients to afford and pay their healthcare bill.”

CarePayment has seen significant year-over-year growth since 2012, even during the pandemic.

“This is a situation where everyone wins,” Caldwell says. “Patients win because they can afford to pay their bill; providers win because they see an improved patient experience coupled with increased collections that otherwise would have turned into bad debt.”

Articles

The company hit the restart button in 2012 when it saw an opportunity to address the affordability gap in healthcare, as costs began started to shift from the payer to the consumer. 

CarePayment’s Digital Strategy Aims to Improve Patient Experience

In the United States alone, 8 million people visit a hospital or clinic with suspicion of stroke each year. Time to treatment is the critical metric, and research has shown that the median time between the onset of symptoms and the start of treatment is 4.5 hours. Every hour of delay results in 11 months of healthy life lost.

., a Los Angeles-based medical technology and data company specializing in assessing cerebral blood flow, recently launched the NovaGuide 2 Platform to help shorten this time frame.

Diane Bryant, CEO of NovaSignal, notes the ultrasound solution driven by artificial intelligence (AI) is the only one of that monitors the brain. The platform empowers clinical teams with critical, real-time information about cerebral blood flow to guide diagnosis and improve patient outcomes.

Designed to seamlessly integrate into existing clinical practice, the platform includes the NovaGuide 2 Intelligent Ultrasound, which autonomously captures blood flow data to identify brain illnesses and disease, and NovaGuide View which provides secure, cloud-based access to dynamic exam data.

“The solution is unique in its ability to access cerebral blood flow through the temporal bone window of the skull, as well as assess the blood flow through the application of advanced algorithms,” Bryant says. “Through the NovaGuide View cloud-based app, the clinical team is alerted as to the results of the exam and provided all information, including dynamic blood flow video and audio, to enable diagnosis.”

Today, 77% of U.S. hospitals and clinics rely on subjective survey tools for stroke assessment, asking the patient to raise their arms and smile, looking for asymmetries, and asking them to speak to identify slurring. Of the 7,290 U.S. hospitals and clinics, only 1,690 hospitals are certified in stroke treatment, so many lack the ability to treat if they do suspect stroke.

Addressing the crisis created by the inability to rapidly and accurately diagnosis stroke, NovaSignal has a $6.2 billion market opportunity in the U.S. alone.

The original manual TCD solution—invented in 1985—is the only competitor.

“The fact that less than 10% of hospitals in the U.S. utilize TCD is testament to the difficulty of use, requiring a certified sonographer to operate the device,” Bryant says. “The robotic and AI-driven NovaGuide eliminates adoption barriers and democratizes TCD. As was stated by one of our Key Opinion Leaders (KOL), NovaGuide and the NovaGuide View app bring TCD and the diagnosis of stroke into the 21st century.”

There is no other system commercially available that addresses brain health with similar attributes of accuracy, cost efficiency, non-invasiveness, safety, and ease of use.Sixteen patents and over 130 presentations and publications reflect both the proprietary nature of the solution and the industry recognition of its value.

The NovaGuide 2 Platform is currently in use by neurologists, cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, and radiologists.

“You will find our solution in neuro-intensive care units for the continuous monitoring of patients after an initial stroke,” Bryant says. “A third of all stroke victims will suffer a second stroke and 20% of all strokes occur while the patient is in the hospital. Today, in over 90% of U.S. hospitals, there is no means to monitor a patient. The NovaGuide platform addresses the void that existed in standard care.”

The platform is also being used in the operating room. Bryant explains that depending on the procedure, 17% of open-heart surgeries result in a life-disabling stroke, and 2% end in death from a stroke.

“NovaGuide is the only solution that provides a continuous view of blood flow in the brain during surgery,” she says. “We have many testimonials of our solution identifying a disruption in cerebral blood flow, alerting the surgical team, enabling rapid response and recovery.”

The solution also has clinically-proven accuracy for the detection of a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO)—a right to left shunt due to a hole in the heart.According to the 

, PFO affects 25% of the population, a latent illness with potentially life-long impact.

“In addition to its accuracy, NovaGuide is the only solution that can determine the severity of the hole and hence the criticality of closure,” Bryant says.

Diane Bryant, CEO of NovaSignal, details the advances seen in the NovaGuide 2 platform

Unlocking the Power of Blood Flow Data with AI

Kulmeet Singh, the chief executive officer of Albuquerque, N.M.-based Twistle, believes in putting the patient at the heart of the healthcare journey.

 has invested in automated patient communication software that can offer personalized, step-by-step guidance to improve outcomes, safety and satisfaction, keeping patients engaged, on track and supported every step of the way.

“A care plan is often a handout that can range from a single page to the size of a book, and we are turning that information into turn by turn guidance for the patient through messaging in an automated way,” he says. “In the event that a patient asks a question that the automation hasn’t anticipated, the care team gets alerted to take over from the automation and continue supporting the patient.”

Remote patient monitoring was already a growth area before the pandemic, with one estimate published 

 predicting a $16 billion surge by 2023. The need to keep patients safe for the past year—and away from hospitals and waiting rooms—has only increased interest.

 of such systems, so that health systems or payers would be willing to invest.

To address this, Singh and his Twistle team have developed a quantifiable and reliable way to measure return on investment (ROI), using years of data on the impact of reducing readmission rates, average length of stay, no shows/same day cancellations, emergency department (ED) bounce back visits, and phone call volume.

For example, clinical leaders at ChristianaCare, a network of private, non-profit hospitals in the MidAtlantic states, were looking to improve early detection of postpartum hypertension by overcoming low attendance for follow-up office visits, so they deployed Twistle’s remote patient monitoring platform to engage new mothers after discharge. Patients were prompted to report their blood pressure reading and answer a short survey.

“The program has successfully reduced postpartum hypertension-related readmissions and eliminated long-standing racial disparity,” Singh says. Although only 30 percent of patients attended in-person postpartum office visits, the remote monitoring program drove 91 percent of new mothers to submit at least one blood pressure reading—a 203 percent increase in hypertension screening, and decreased 30-day readmissions by 55 percent.

Another successful case study involved Washington-based Providence St. Joseph, which collaborated with Twistle to build digital care plans for total hip replacement and total knee replacement surgeries. These care plans were designed to automatically deliver the right information to patients at the right time, including education, reminders, surveys, checklists, and messages from their care team. Patients enrolled in the Twistle pathway experienced a 44 percent reduction in hospital readmissions, a reduction in surgical complications and the length of stay was reduced by 15 percent.

Twistle offers hospital leaders the peace of mind that the patient engagement solutions they adopt will generate the promised return on clinical, financial and operational outcomes.

“Measuring ROI is very difficult, especially since health systems are straddling fee-for-service and value-based care business models,” Singh says. “The same value that Twistle might bring in a value-based care context may not deliver value in ROI in a fee-for-service context and vice-versa. We generally take a patient-first approach to arrive at a good outcome, independent of what the business model is. If you don’t have a patient enrolled and engaged in an ROI tool, there’s no opportunity to influence ROI. Patient satisfaction, leads to additional revenue.”

Twistle's CEO, Kulmeet Singh, says he's come up with a reliable way to measure return on investment for his company's remote monitoring software solutions.

Keith Loria

Articles

CarePayment’s Digital Strategy Aims to Improve Patient Experience

Unlocking the Power of Blood Flow Data with AI

Measuring the ROI of Remote Patient Monitoring