Pre-service payment plans increase patient affordability and engagement
COVID-19 relief payment options help patients defray cost of out-of-pocket spend
Single Sign-On and telehealth payment apps for Epic users improve patient financial experience
BOSTON, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Flywire, a high-growth vertical payments company, announced new enhancements to its leading healthcare payments platform during COVID-19 that improve patient engagement and affordability. Flywire’s pre-service payment plans, which were developed in partnership with health systems, enable healthcare providers to offer patients personalized payment options prior to service based on their specific financial needs. To enable healthcare providers to address the concerns of patients who may be experiencing financial hardship as a result of COVID-19, Flywire also offers customizable payment solutions that adapt to patients’ capacity to pay.
As patient responsibility continues to rise amidst strained personal finances, engaging patients digitally with personalized payment options that meet their ability to pay is a critical balance for providers. In many cases, patients don’t fully understand their obligation, nor do they have a way to engage with a healthcare provider until after the cost is incurred. As a result, there is an increasing rate of receivables going to bad debt, increasing collection costs, as well as administrative time and expense.
This affordability gap is further widening due to COVID-19. Even as health systems slowly reopen for elective procedures, they still face revenue challenges, as they are forced to collect from patients with less available cash. Flywire’s offerings take the surprise out of medical bills for patients and streamline provider operations, which are critical in the COVID-19 era.
The enhancements to Flywire’s healthcare payments platform include:
- Pre-service payment plans: This solution gives providers greater ability to settle payment commitments from an estimate by engaging patients with affordable options via text or email, or in real-time over the phone and in-person, while easing the payment burden for patients. The improved solution - which builds on Simplee Access Prepare & Pay following Flywire's recent acquisition of Simplee - combines a consumer-first self-service experience with seamless payment integration and workflow.
- COVID-19 relief payment options: As a way to help defray the out-of-pocket spend for patients and minimize bad debt for hospitals, Flywire provides an integrated solution that identifies a COVID-19 patient’s current financial situation through analytics, engages them with personalized payment offers at pre- and post-service, and enables them to self-activate payment arrangements that meet their needs. This rules-based solution allows clients to quickly adapt to unplanned scenarios, such as COVID-19, by offering a temporary lower installment payment to ease the burden on patients.
- Single Sign-On (SSO) and telehealth payments for Epic users: Available on the Epic App Orchard, SSO enables patients to seamlessly access Flywire services through MyChart and significantly improves the financial experience. And, Flywire’s existing app, Secure Checkout, now allows clients to expand the payment service for telehealth visits to avoid capturing, transmitting or storing card data on their network. As Flywire services continue to grow rapidly with clients, SSO and Secure Checkout support provider goals for MyChart adoption, while delivering expanded capabilities for improving patient interactions and payment.
“The ability to set proper expectations up front about a patient’s financial responsibility and proactively offer personalized payment options significantly improves collectability,” said John Talaga, EVP and GM of Flywire’s healthcare business. “But providers don’t always have access to the necessary information or tools to be able to offer that.”
“Our expanded payment plans at pre-service come at a time when the industry needs them most. Asking for payment on estimates is a tough conversation for scheduling and pre-registration staff. Offering installments that fit their budget and automatically adjust after insurance pays makes this a more reasonable ask of patients. Likewise, our COVID-19 relief plans provide more compassionate payment options to ease the financial burden on patients during and after this pandemic.”
About Flywire
Flywire is a high-growth vertical payments company trusted by organizations around the world to deliver on their customers’ most important moments. Unlike other companies, Flywire is proven to solve vertical-specific payment and receivables problems for organizations that deliver high-value services. Whether in education, healthcare, travel or technology, Flywire has vertical-specific insight and technology that allows organizations to optimize the payment experience for their customers while eliminating operational challenges. To date Flywire has processed over $16 billion in total payments volume for over 2,000 clients around the world. The company is headquartered in Boston, MA, USA and has offices around the world. For more information, visit www.flywire.com. Follow Flywire on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
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