Parasail Launches New Consumer Financial Product Designed to Increase Patient Collections 100% - 400%
Parasail's ProPatient Plans spread patient out of pocket bills over years at 0% interest.
Hospitals are paid immediately with no recourse.
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Parasail Health, the health-finance start-up backed by Peter Thiel and several other venture capital funds has unveiled a new financial product that will increase hospital patient collections by 2x to 4x while reducing administrative costs and patient AR days. The new product, called Parasail ProPatient, gives patients 0% interest financing for out of pocket medical costs with monthly payments spread out over years if needed to make payments affordable. Hospitals and large practice groups that offer ProPatient Plans receive payment immediately from Parasail without recourse. Parasail services the payment plans for the entire repayment period, and patient interest rates remain at 0% for the entire term.
With health care costs rising faster than inflation, wage growth and GDP, consumers are paying more, in the form of high-deductible health plans. Now over 1/3 of employer-provided plans have high deductibles while 52% of Americans say they can't afford an unexpected expense of just $400. With no price transparency, confusing insurance plans and arcane billing practices, consumers are often unaware of their financial exposure. Medical costs have now become the number one concern of Americans and the leading cause of personal bankruptcy. All of which has led to ballooning bad debt for providers; hospitals collect only about 15% of what they bill patients. With patients now health care's third largest payer (behind Medicare and Medicaid), providers and patients need simple and fair payment solutions quickly.
"It's clear that none of the payment solutions available to patients were working," says Adam Tibbs, CEO of Parasail Health. "Most people fully intend to pay what they owe, but when they get a bill for thousands of dollars, with no realistic payment option that can fit their budget, they're basically forced to default on their bills."
In a Parasail ProPatient Plan, each patient's monthly payment is based on that person's ability to pay, as determined by Parasail's proprietary financial models. Using Parasail, hospitals can rapidly increase payments for outstanding balances over $1000, which make up the majority of traditionally uncollectible debt.
Parasail ProPatient Plans, which are funded directly by Parasail using private equity capital, are the first financial product aside from health insurance itself created from within the health care industry rather than imported from retail or banking.
Parasail's proprietary data models create unique profiles for each patient that result in payment plans specifically tailored to what each patient can afford to pay monthly. It is the first product to model payment plans based on patient affordability rather than criteria set top-down by hospital administrators.
ProPatient plans have been tested with two hospital groups and specialty practices and Parasail is beginning to roll the product out more broadly. Parasail is inviting other hospitals to test their own AR data in the Parasail model for free to see how offering ProPatient Plans would impact their collections rates.
You can find out more about Parasail's ProPatient Plans at www.Parasail.com or set up a test of your AR data here.
About Parasail Health
Parasail Health is helping doctors and patients focus on treatment instead of worrying about payment by creating tools that help patients plan, manage and pay for health care. Focusing first on helping people afford their care, Parasail provides free estimators, simple application and approval processes, and a proprietary underwriting model that instantly measures each patients ability to pay, which is used to create zero-percent interest payment plans customized to each patient — with immediate, non-recourse payment to each provider or hospital. Electives patients are empowered to avoid high-interest credit card debt by using the free Parasail Select search engine to get fixed-rate financing offers from all of the top online lenders with a single application. Parasail's mission is to make health care affordable. It's time to focus on what matters.
Media Contact:
Dave Matli
VP Marketing & Product UX
[email protected]
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SOURCE Parasail Health
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