CWH Advisors PatientPay™ research reveals staffing shortages and shrinking margins have providers considering third-party financial partners, prioritizing patient payment experience

CONCORD, Mass., April 6, 2023 – A recent study published by management consulting firm CWH Advisors and sponsored by CareCredit, a Synchrony (NYSE:SYF) solution, found healthcare providers are expressing significant interest in outsourcing their revenue cycle management (RCM) processes. According to the study, 61% of providers expect to make greater use of external parties for offering patient financing options in the wake of lingering disruptions following the pandemic.

The study, entitled PatientPay 2022, found 63% of respondents indicated they were experiencing staffing shortages in their revenue cycle departments, which can lead to less predictability in revenue streams. As a result, there is heightened interest from healthcare providers to work with third-party financial partners to support their business and patient management needs. Providers are particularly looking for help improving the patient experience, with only 42% feeling satisfied with their current patient payment solutions. Providers are focusing on improving check-in and payment capabilities, also known as the “digital front end,” to provide a more seamless and retail-like payment experience for their patients.

“We designed this study to get providers’ point of view on their patient payment needs, to better understand how technology supports payments processes, and to learn more about how the procurement of those services occurs,” said David Stievater, Partner, CWH Advisors. “Overall, our research found that providers work hard to balance their financial goals of accelerating cash flow and reducing debt with offering excellent service and flexible payment options to patients.”

Other key survey findings included:

• All organizations surveyed indicated patient payments are a “high” or “moderate” priority for their organization.
• Exactly 68% of providers ranked excellent customer service in their top three priorities for selecting an external patient payment solution.
• Additionally, 59% of providers assessed patient financial literacy as “poor” despite investments in educational collateral and additional front-line financial counselors.

“The research illustrates providers’ need to improve cash flow with faster, more reliable payments and patients’ desire for modern care financing options,” said Tim Donovan, SVP, Health & Wellness, Synchrony. “Third-party financial partners, like Synchrony, can help patients obtain the care they need and improve their overall customer service experience, while accelerating cash flow and reducing bad debt for providers. Our services ultimately provide a frictionless, simplified payment system for the organizations with whom we work.”

Synchrony, a company with a 90-year heritage in consumer lending and more than 35 years of experience in healthcare finance through its CareCredit healthcare credit card, offers educational resources to help patients learn more about healthcare costs and the financial solutions that can help patients plan and pay for care. CareCredit is a health and wellness credit card that patients can use to pay for deductibles, for treatments and procedures that are partially covered or not covered by insurance, and for other health and wellness services for individuals and their pets. It is accepted at more than 260,000 provider and retail locations nationwide.

To learn more about the CareCredit and CWH Advisors’ PatientPay study, please visit us at www.cwhadvisors.com/contact.

Methodology

The CWH PatientPay 2022 study was designed to identify trends and innovations in patient payments from healthcare providers’ point of view. Interviews for the study were conducted in November and December 2022, and included both open-ended and multiple-choice questions. Nearly 40 interviews were conducted with hospital and medical group executives and all respondents have line of sight or management responsibility for patient payments.

About CWH Advisors

CWH Advisors is a healthcare advisory firm that offers guidance and direction to help healthcare organizations at inflection points navigate their next phase by providing expertise and bandwidth. We’re better because we are experienced operators. We’re believable because of our depth of healthcare knowledge. We promise our clients to treat their business as if it’s our own. For more information, please visit us at www.cwhadvisors.com.

About Synchrony

Synchrony (NYSE: SYF) is a premier consumer financial services company delivering one of the industry's most complete digitally enabled product suites. Our experience, expertise, and scale encompass a broad spectrum of industries, including digital, health and wellness, retail, telecommunications, home, auto, outdoor, pet, and more. We have an established and diverse group of national and regional retailers, local merchants, manufacturers, buying groups, industry associations, and healthcare service providers, which we refer to as our "partners." We connect our partners and consumers through our dynamic financial ecosystem and provide them with a diverse set of financing solutions and innovative digital capabilities to address their specific needs and deliver seamless, omnichannel experiences. We offer the right financing products to customers in their channel of choice. For more information, visit www.synchrony.com and Twitter @Synchrony.

Media Contacts:

Kirsten Coviello
CWH Advisors
kirsten.coviello@cwhadvisors.com

Michelle Blaya Romero
Synchrony
Michelle.Romero@syf.com
(626) 250-1415