How AI-Powered Patient Financing Makes Healthcare More Affordable

TL;DR

The right patient financing services help make care more affordable, improve collections, and reduce administrative burden. Providers should choose solutions that are flexible, AI-powered, and patient-friendly. Effective services enhance satisfaction, protect cash flow, and support sustainable healthcare delivery.

Empower your revenue cycle with AI-driven patient financing services that streamline collections and cash flow

Never mind how they behaved at the voting booth: American voters still see healthcare costs as a significant problem. Pew Research Center pollsters found that nearly two-thirds (or 65%) of voters felt healthcare was “very important” to how they voted.

It’s not hard to see why. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation:

• Nearly 50% of U.S. adults agree that managing healthcare costs is tough.
• 25% of Americans concede that someone in their immediate family struggled to pay a healthcare bill at some point in the past year.
• More than 60% of uninsured adults admitted they’d put off treatment because they couldn’t afford it.
• 1 in 5 Americans fail to take the medications they need because of how expensive they are.

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Marty Makary, MD, sums it up well– if tragically– in “The Price We Pay,” his treatise on healthcare economics in the United States.

“The profits are big but the casualties are great,” Makary, the potential new FDA chief wrote in his 2019 book. “Overtesting, over-diagnosing, and overtreatment are now commonplace in some spheres of medicine. And prices are so high that patients can’t pay the bills. About one in five Americans currently has medical debt in collections and half of patients with certain medical conditions, such as women with stage 4 breast cancer, now report being harassed by a collection agency for their medical bills.”

Believe it or not, there is hope. A new generation of patient financing services, led by those leveraging the latest AI technology, are reaching out and making a tangible, substantive difference for those struggling to keep up with their medical bills.

The Current Landscape: Financial Struggles in Healthcare

Rising healthcare costs outpace inflation leaving many Americans burdened with unnecessary debt. Those same KFF researchers found that more than 40% of adults live with medical (or dental) debt, often resorting to maxing out their credit cards, taking loans from family or friends, or dodging relentless calls from collection agencies.

These struggles hit some groups disproportionately harder than others. Black and Hispanic patients, women, low-income families, and uninsured adults bear a lopsided amount of that debt.

Simply put, 15 million Americans still have medical bills on their credit reports, making it the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States, accounting for roughly two-thirds of such filings.

That debt comes with a price that goes far beyond merciless interest rates. The number crunchers at KFF also found out that individuals living under the burden of medical debt are at greater risk in other financial aspects.” Those vulnerabilities reveal themselves in how they typically outspend what they make every month, live without a “rainy day” fund, and regularly overdraw their checking accounts.

Worse still, an American Cancer Society study uncovered “associations between medical debt and worse health outcomes, including more unhealthy days, more premature deaths, and higher mortality rates.”

Most traditional healthcare patient financing options–whether employer-paid insurance, private high-deductible plans, or even government programs–often fail to adequately cover co-pays, prescription meds, or emergency healthcare costs.

A report published earlier this year here at PayZen shows that Americans are open to new approaches to healthcare financing.

• A whopping 77% of those surveyed back longer-term monthly payment plans (think Affirm for deductibles).
• While 75% of patients would love to see multiple payment options, spread out over extended periods.

“These findings underscore the urgent need to address healthcare affordability issues to ensure equitable access to essential services and alleviate financial burdens on individuals and families,” PayZen Founder and CEO Itzik Cohen explained in a press release. “It’s not a willingness to pay issue, it’s a financial capacity to pay problem.”

PayZen’s Solution: Leveraging AI to Transform Patient Financing

As rising costs make healthcare access increasingly more challenging for most Americans, solutions like PayZen’s AI-powered platform offer tailored payment solutions that benefit everyone. Patients get the healthcare they need while providers benefit from automated cash flow. It’s a solution that makes healthcare patient financing simpler and more equitable.

PayZen wants to tackle healthcare affordability issues across the board. Through its personalized payment plans, PayZen helps recovering patients shake off the financial issues that chase most consumers. And with its groundbreaking new Care Card, with physical and virtual debit options, PayZen offers a chance to address deferred care due to cost, expanding healthcare access, while providing consumers with financial reassurance.

For patients, this flexibility means avoiding financial distress. For providers, it means focusing on care rather than collections.

Real-World Impact: Testimonial from a PayZen Customer

Tony M., recovering from a broken ankle and elbow surgery, stumbled across PayZen as he tried to pay a medical bill online. His healthcare provider offered the option at checkout, and with no credit check and a 12-month repayment plan, he saw it as a no-brainer.

“[PayZen] offers the benefits of long-time financing without the downside, such as the high interest, the hit to your credit score, or the delinquency notices,” Tony explained.

He found the process so simple, in fact, that he barely recalls it.

“To be honest, it wasn’t very memorable because it was so seamless,” Tony added. “It was a matter of clicking a box and picking which terms you wanted.”

This flexibility gave Tony more than financial relief—it freed up funds for life’s other priorities, like buying a new stroller for his newborn baby.

Broader Benefits of Patient Financing Services

PayZen provides healthcare financing for patients, that expands access to necessary and preventative care that includes:

• Interest-free medical payment plans that don’t come with hidden service charges or late fees.
• The ability to place a down payment on an upcoming procedure.
• Automate patient payment plans, removing the stress of looming medical bills.

All of this makes for happier patients in a much better place to recover with renewed faith in the healthcare system.

For providers, the benefits of patient financing services are equally significant, such as:

• A 30% bump (on average) of patient payments.
• 50% increase in customer satisfaction.
• 10% lower cost to collect than more traditional payment platforms.

In short, healthcare providers can spend less time worrying about tedious administrative tasks and more time helping patients.

Summarizing the PayZen Difference

Patient financing services like PayZen prove that affordable healthcare isn’t a pipe dream. By harnessing the power of AI, PayZen removes cost as a barrier with interest-free, flexible payment plans. PayZen offers more than just medical bill assistance. They’re breaking down barriers to medical care and helping millions of Americans regain financial stability.

For healthcare consumers like Tony M., these patient financing tools ease the burden of medical bills and allow patients to focus on what truly matters–their health and their loved ones.

As more providers adopt tech-powered solutions such as these, we’ll take a major step toward a future where no one has to choose between their health and their financial well-being.