Allegiance Health Management, a leading healthcare provider in Louisiana, had historically struggled to improve collection rates on patient balances. Then, Allegiance discovered PayZen, a solution that allows patients to pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses over time.
As Allegiance has proactively offered patients more affordable payment options, both revenue capture and patient satisfaction have increased substantially.
Background: A “No-Brainer” to Improve Cash Flow Metrics and the Patient Experience
Like many acute and post-acute health systems, Allegiance faced long-standing challenges in collecting payment balances from patients. As a result, timeliness of cash flow and revenue capture rates were less than optimal. Allegiance needed to accelerate cash flow without placing a greater burden on its busy staff.
Allegiance wasn’t actively looking for a solution when it came across PayZen’s platform. However, its team was immediately interested in the opportunity to increase affordability, and in turn increase self-pay collection rates, without any staffing needs on their end. This factor led them to prioritize PayZen, in their own words, as a “no-brainer solution.”
Allegiance also appreciated that PayZen could improve the patient experience by making healthcare more affordable. PayZen gives patients a unique option to choose payment amounts and schedules that work best for them, while still getting the high-quality care they deserve.
Implementation: A Seamless Rollout and Successful Pilot
When Allegiance was ready to move forward with PayZen, it opted for a phased rollout, making implementation seamless and flexible. One key to success was PayZen working closely with Allegiance’s early-out vendor to establish a workflow that streamlined operations, ensuring that patient experience and provider economics were optimized while administrative complexity was minimized.
We were able to work out a great process between PayZen and our early out vendor. They found common ground and formed a relationship that is a win-win for Allegiance and patients alike. We can now focus our efforts on providing the best possible care while enjoying peace-of-mind that it will be affordable for our community. —Jared Graves, CFO
Allegiance began with a pilot at Mercy Regional Medical Center in the town of Ville Platte, Louisiana. Getting up and running was smooth and easy – Mercy went live with the PayZen platform in a few weeks. After a few short months, the solution successfully demonstrated patient adoption and impact. Allegiance has since rolled out PayZen’s offering to seven additional hospitals in the system.
Results: Revenue Lift and Time Savings with Automation
The benefits of Allegiance’s partnership with PayZen have been significant for patients, who can access more affordable payment options and never pay interest or fees. Patients have shared that enrollment is simple and easy, and PayZen is very willing to work with them if they need to make any changes to their plan. Notably, the healthcare industry average for Net Promoter Score (measures the loyalty of customers to a company) is 45. By stark contrast, Allegiance patients who use PayZen to pay their bills over time give a Net Promoter Score of 87.
“This isn’t something we’ve been able to make available in the past, so we are thrilled to be able to offer this option to our patients. They really benefit from the flexibility and the feedback has been tremendous so far. Our partnership with PayZen truly impacts our population health and helps us on our mission of serving as many people as we can.” —Tracie Young, Regional Revenue Cycle Director
Meanwhile, PayZen has improved Allegiance’s business by accelerating cash flow without recourse and increasing self-pay collection rates, leading to overall higher revenue capture. Since offering PayZen as an alternative bill pay option to patients, Allegiance has realized over $1.5M in incremental patient payments. Furthermore, PayZen’s fully automated engagement, enrollment, and servicing of payment plans have freed up Allegiance’s billing staff to work on other critical activities.
Looking ahead, as Allegiance Health Management continues to expand its footprint, it has plans to offer PayZen to its growing patient population to continue delivering a stellar patient experience while maximizing potential revenue.
To learn how your organization can see results like Allegiance did, get in touch with us today.
