There are many factors that go into enterprise purchasing decisions, but ultimately, it’s an economic investment decision. Making technology investments around healthcare revenue cycle management is no exception.
With this in mind, we commissioned Forrester Consulting to independently examine the financial impact healthcare organizations can expect when deploying Flywire’s payment platform. Forrester’s highly respected Total Economic Impact (TEI) methodology involved in-depth interviews with six different decision makers that had deployed Flywire’s healthcare payment platform, along with extensive financial analysis and due diligence. Forrester created a composite organization from the six decision makers interviewed to represent the aggregate findings. More details on that are in the full report, which you can access below.
But here’s the good part: The composite organization using Flywire’s contingency fee pricing model experiences benefits of $25.18 million over three years versus costs of $6.83 million, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $18.35 million and an ROI of 269%. That means for every $1 spent, the composite organization realized a return of $3.69 over three years.
We break out some of the savings and efficiency gains below.
8 key takeaways from the report
According to Forrester, a healthcare organization of the relative scale of those interviewed would see the following results:
1. Revenue collection increase of 29% — $23 million over three years: Using Flywire, healthcare organizations are able to better engage patients through multiple digital channels throughout their entire healthcare payment experience, meaningfully increasing revenue and reducing bad debt write-offs. The ability to leverage Flywire for pre-service estimates and to proactively set up payment plans has a big impact here as well.
“We’re sending less to bad debt. Prior to Flywire, our bad debt as a percentage of net revenue was 5.5%, and it is about 4% now.”
- Director of Patient Balance Management
2. Reduction in staff involvement in patient billing by 30% — $1.6 million over three years: By driving greater levels of patient self-service into the payment process, Flywire significantly reduces patient complaint, support and payment call volumes. This frees up staff to focus on higher-value tasks, improving overall productivity and lowering costs.
3. Reduction in cost of paper statements by 20% — $0.3 million over three years: Flywire drives digital and mobile engagement with the self-pay- after-insurance patient population. Some 20% of patients either create self-managed digital payment plans on the Flywire platform or enter into aided payment plans when calling the customer service center.
4. Improved patient satisfaction: Patients reported a better experience engaging with the healthcare organizations after the implementation of Flywire.
“Patients satisfied with the financial aspect of their care were twice as likely to pay their bill, twice as likely to return for services, and five times as likely to refer us to a friend.”
- Vice President of Revenue Cycle
5. Standardization of billing across networks: Flywire helps standardize the billing process so patients can easily understand their cost of care. Interviewees all mentioned this benefit as one of the fundamental reasons their organizations engaged with Flywire.
6. Consolidation of AR systems across networks: Having multiple accounts receivable (A/R) systems within the same organization was very costly for both the patient and the healthcare organization. Flywire helps reduce or consolidate all data from A/R systems into a single interface.
“One of the big value propositions of Flywire is the aggregation of AR [accounts receivable] systems. In the past, we had many online pay portals with limited digital engagement. Now, we have an enterprise solution that has stitched them into one portal for better digital engagement and fewer tedious interactions to service dispersed bills from multiple AR systems.”
- Executive Leader, Revenue Cycle Management
7. Improved staff experience: Call center and other point-of-service staff saw improvement in their experience servicing patients. Flywire made it easier to see the full financial situation of the patient, which helped with answering questions and developing patient-centric strategies to pay for and receive care.
8. Increased flexibility to serve patients: This value was unique to each healthcare organization, but some of the specific examples mentioned include the ability to personalize payment plans to a patient's unique circumstances, the strategic use of patient service analytics in setting up those payment plans, and extending payment capabilities to patients’ preferred channels such as text instead of email.
Prior to using Flywire, the interviewees said that their healthcare organizations leveraged their EHR systems in conjunction with an assortment of homegrown self-payment modules and manual business processes to bill and collect patients’ post-service outstanding balances. These systems and processes were ineffective in collecting payments owed. They created a poor patient financial experience, leading to high levels of complaints, loss of patients seeking services within the system, high bad debt write-offs, and poor patient satisfaction.
After deploying Flywire's healthcare payment platform, the interviewees said their organizations provided patients with a consolidated view of their financial status on a single platform. As a result, patients could better understand and act on medical bills. The healthcare organizations were also able to personalize the patient payment experience to best serve each patient’s current financial needs.
For more detail about the research and to see all of the results, download the Forrester TEI Report here.