PatientPay’s new partnership with Provista is set to transform healthcare billing, empowering medical providers with cutting-edge digital solutions.
As healthcare providers face mounting costs and operational challenges, PatientPay and Provista are stepping up with a partnership aimed at tackling billing inefficiencies head-on.
Through PatientPay’s advanced platform, Provista’s network will gain powerful tools to reduce paper-based billing, accelerate payment collection, and increase financial control. With introductions over, let’s dig into this agreement and what it means in the current context of the medical billing field.
Financial Pressures Force Medical Groups to Shift to Digital Billing Solutions
The demand for digital billing in healthcare has become increasingly urgent as operating expenses soar across medical practices. According to a recent MGMA poll, 92% of medical groups reported increased operating expenses in 2024, with rising costs outpacing revenue gains.
Staffing is one of the significant factors driving this trend, with expenses for salaries, locum tenens, and contracted providers rising sharply. Specifically, operating costs per full-time-equivalent (FTE) physician rose by 7.6% in 2022 for physician-owned practices and by 19.9% for hospital-owned practices.
Additionally, non-labor costs, such as medical supplies, maintenance, and cybersecurity, are compounding this financial burden.
The knock-on effect of these rising costs is that patients are responsible for paying increasing portions of their medical expenses. To stabilize revenue, medical practices are forced to adopt patient-friendly billing solutions.
This is where digital billing platforms like PatientPay are uniquely positioned to alleviate these challenges. Practices can leverage these systems to improve payment workflows to streamline administrative tasks, reduce delays, and foster patient compliance, all effective measures for managing rising costs in a strained healthcare economy.
Overview of PatientPay
PatientPay is a healthcare revenue cycle management technology company founded with a mission to transform healthcare billing. It has grown rapidly in recent years, providing a patient-centric digital payment platform to remedy billing inefficiencies and enhance payment collection for healthcare providers.
While traditional paper billing processes have long been the norm, PatientPay's founders saw the need for electronic systems that cater to modern consumer expectations. Drawing from their backgrounds with companies like Nike and Google, PatientPay prioritized user-friendly, compliant, and efficient solutions.
Based in Durham, North Carolina, PatientPay is headquartered in a region known for its tech innovation. The company has gained considerable traction, particularly following its strategic merger with ClearGage in 2024. This merger expanded PatientPay’s reach and services, contributing to an impressive 527% growth in supported medical groups from 2021 to 2023.
This growth was driven by a number of impressive milestones during the same time, including:
- Increased its digital wallets under management to 1.2 million
- Raising click-to-pay rates from 38% to 44%
- Increasing mobile payment usage from 56% to 71%
- Boosting collection rates by 50% to 100%
PatientPay’s platform meets HIPAA, TCPA, and PCI compliance standards, making it a secure choice for healthcare providers seeking to streamline billing. With an eye on operational excellence and customer demand, PatientPay continues its mission, reshaping how medical groups manage payments.
The company boasts some impressive metrics compared to the rest of the market:
- Collection rate: 43% vs 15%
- Average payment turnaround: 14 days vs 45 days
- Average cost to collect: $7.20 vs $14.40
- % of payments via electronic channels: 75-80% vs 20%
Overview of Provista
Founded in 1994, Provista is a premier Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) that leverages the buying power of over 200,000 members across various sectors, including healthcare, education, government, and beyond.
Now part of Vizient—one of the largest healthcare improvement companies in the U.S.—Provista was established to streamline supply chains in the healthcare industry. It has since expanded its support to small businesses and large corporations alike, including Fortune 1000 firms.
Provista’s expansive contract portfolio and purchasing solutions allow its members to access substantial cost savings on essential goods and services. Beyond procurement, Provista provides analytics and supply chain consulting in the hopes of helping business achieve greater efficiency.
By offering tailored services for both acute and non-acute care facilities, Provista is uniquely positioned to address the evolving needs of its extensive client base. This helps organizations manage costs and adapt to industry demands.
With assets under Vizient’s large network, Provista remains a strategic and powerful partner for organizations seeking cost-effective, streamlined supply solutions in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape.
Details of the Contract and Strategic Implications
While the exact financial terms of the contract have not been disclosed, the scope includes providing Provista’s healthcare partners access to PatientPay’s advanced digital billing solutions, spanning:
- Spanning ambulatory care,
- Physician offices,
- Long-term care, and
- Home health organizations, amongst others
The combined platform will now support 1,600 of these healthcare organizations across thousands of locations. The hope is that it will help Provista’s network of healthcare providers accelerate payment collection and reduce their dependance on paper-based methods.
The contract is a strategic milestone for PatientPay, which undoubtedly hopes to expand its market presence by tapping into Provista’s wide-reaching healthcare client base.
PatientPay’s CEO, Tom Furr, emphasized the value of this partnership, noting, “Our ability to vastly increase payments, accelerate the time to collect, and reduce paper statements by up to 50% is one of the reasons our partners trust and depend on us. Through this agreement, healthcare providers in the Provista network will have increased access to the platform that offers further control over their finances and the ability to win back much-needed revenue.”
Conclusion
As PatientPay and Provista join forces, healthcare providers are positioned to unlock new efficiencies and revenue opportunities with seamless digital billing solutions. As a bonus, they’ll also improve the experience and convenience of paying medical bills for their patients.
With PatientPay’s digital expertise and Provista’s expansive network, this collaboration offers healthcare providers a straightforward path to faster, more efficient billing.
This powerful alliance promises to set a new standard for patient payment processes in the medical field.
