With the push toward consumer-friendly efforts in healthcare, could billing be the next area of focus? If there’s one area that is decidedly not consumer-friendly, billing would likely top everyone’s list.
But at least one company, iVinci Health, is attempting to do just that, and it closed $5 million in new funding earlier this month.
The Boise-based company also said its VisitPay, an online payment and financing portal that helps patients manage medical bills and set up financing plans, has been expanded through investment from several big-name health systems that have already used its product. Among them: Intermountain Healthcare, Virginia-based Inova Health System, Boise-based St. Luke’s Health System; and another “undisclosed but highly-regarded health system headquartered in the Pacific Northwest,” according to iVinci Health.
The company, founded in 2010 and headed by former Capital One executive Kent Ivanoff, said it thinks the market is “primed for a solution that addresses the collection of patient balances and delivers a substantially more consumer-friendly online experience to healthcare billing.”
Particularity with the proliferation of high-deductible health plans, which are expected to continue as employers grapple with utilization costs and place more financial responsibility on the consumer, the market is ripe for something different, the thinking goes. To that end, iVinci estimates that patient obligations have grown from less than 5 percent of the health system’s revenue to 20 percent over the last few years.
“There will be unprecedented demand for a different billing experience — one that’s on par with other consumer-driven markets,” Ivanoff said in a release. “Patients will choose where to get care — based not just on the quality of the care itself but also on the financial management resources made available to them by healthcare providers.”
iVinci said its financing portal simplifies the medical billing process, making it clear how much the patient owes exactly, when they owe it and how they might finance it with a host of online management tools.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
That’s a far cry from much of the current-day billing practices that include snail-mailed statements with vaguely coded language, confusing lists of prices and ever-changing indications of what insurance has or hasn’t paid for.
Two main obstacles often prevent patients from paying medical bills promptly – confusion and a “dearth” of financing options, according to Ivanoff.
Two of the investing systems, St. Luke’s and the unnamed Pacific Northwest health system, were initial investors during iVinci’s first equity offering in 2011. Both have also used the payment system themselves.
