MILWAUKEE – With the advent of new technology, healthcare providers are taking a closer look at their accounts receivable practices. What had traditionally been a back-end process is now being pushed to the front, allowing providers to arrange for and secure payment before the patient leaves the office.
Metavante is looking to improve that relationship between the provider and the payer with a suite of software and services designed to automate transactions. Through its Healthcare Gateway portal, the Milwaukee-based company, a provider of banking and payments technology for several industries, is now helping hospitals and physician practices set up payment and eligibility connections not only with the patient, but also with insurance carriers and health plans.
“In the current environment, it’s sort of a disconnected process,” said John Reynolds, division president of Metavante Healthcare Payment Solutions, which has been expanding its foothold in the provider area for roughly a year and a half. “There is an increasing amount of collection effort that physicians are undertaking with their patients, while hospitals are making a play for banking services. It’s a growing business problem for both.”
Reynolds said only the largest hospitals and health networks have the resources to conduct their own healthcare banking operations, complete with a lockbox and established rules for consumer collections and eligibility. The smaller providers, he said, want to outsource those concerns.
“It’s work that probably gets done in the afternoon by the office manager, if there is one,” he said, “or even by the physicians. But they don’t want to do that.”
Metavante is also boosting its contacts in the healthcare banking sector.
In July, the company announced an expanded relationship with Portland, Ore.-based AXIS Health Partners, extending the third party administrator’s benefits administration and debit card solutions to include automated claims payment reimbursement and explanation of benefit (EOB) distribution services. The company has also signed contracts this year with Sterling HSA and Careflex and debuted its new personal health record solution, WealthCare Manager.
Sterling HSA, which offers health savings account administration services to employers and individuals, saw 97 percent growth in its health savings account business in 2008, with a corresponding 86 percent increase in dollar deposits. The company will use Metavante’s WealthCare Card platform to provide account holders with access to their HSA accounts.
A Metavante client since 2001, AXIS uses the company’s BenSoft platform for the administration of its FlexAccount employer-funded health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) and WealthCare Card to provide government contractors with access to the HRA funds. By expanding its relationship to include ClaimPay/ClaimRemit, AXIS now looks to Metavante for the automated distribution of post-adjudicated claims payments and EOBs.
