Cedar Launches Agentic Platform to Help Providers Collect from Healthcare's Fastest-Growing Payer: Patients

Building on Cedar's proven agentic success, Kora Platform marks the next evolution of AI-driven patient financial resolution

NEW YORK, Aug. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Cedar, a leader in AI-driven patient financial engagement, today announced the Kora Platform. Kora Platform reflects an evolution from a single AI billing agent to a suite of purpose-built AI agents that work together to recover patient revenue, reduce cost-to-collect, and support patients without disrupting existing IT environments. Kora Platform integrates with a provider's existing EHR, telephony, and call center system, turning billing notifications into conversations via voice and two-way text.

Cedar's own decade of studying consumer financial behavior has shown that the solution that solves a patient's need with the least friction wins out in the long run, which is why consumer engagement is moving away from static apps to just-in-time agentic dialog, and patients are no exception. Portals and rigid IVR menus were built to route people to a queue, not to resolve an unexpected balance. In the meantime, patients have quietly become one of healthcare's largest payers with far higher costs to collect and write-offs. Across Cedar's platform, nearly 40% of collectible dollars now come from patients without insurance coverage–up 54% in just three years–and the national hospital revenue impact due to OBBBA (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) could top $68.6 billion over the course of 2026 and 2027. Most billing infrastructure was never built to handle a payer like this.

Built on a decade of patient billing data

Healthcare has invested billions in clinical decision support, yet patient financial decision support remains neglected. Portals deliver bills without solving problems, EHRs tout features that require provider configuration while outcomes remain fuzzy, and general-purpose AI models lack the necessary financial expertise. Equipped with a decade of Cedar experience resolving over 1.5 billion patient bills, the Kora platform can distinguish a patient who's confused, one who can't pay right now, and one who just needs to access HSA funds, engaging each differently:

• Powered by 1.5B+ patient interactions, $13.6B payments, and 63M+ patients served, Kora Platform adapts in real time to predict a patient's needs and trigger the optimal next financial action.
• Grounded in years of human-in-the-loop servicing expertise, regression-tested guardrails, and closed-loop optimization, every action is precise, compliant, and auditable.
• Every patient interaction continuously sharpens system-wide logic, propensity models, and campaign performance across the network.

As self-pay balances and call volumes rise, Kora Platform enables billing teams to keep pace, recovering revenue and freeing live agents to focus on the conversations that truly require human touch.

"When patients are facing unexpected healthcare costs, they need clarity, flexibility, and empathy, not a rigid phone tree or transactional chatbot," said Dugan Winkie, Chief Strategy Officer at Cedar. "With Kora Platform, we're providing health systems with an always-on advocate that builds trust and resolves balances seamlessly across every channel."

A true financial partner, not a chatbot

Unlike typical billing conversations and chats today, Kora remembers past conversations with patients. History of the last interaction remains, easy to find and pick back up later. By carrying context across conversations, patients do not need  to start from scratch when calling in.

That memory extends across an entire care journey, not just a single conversation. Resolving a denied claim, for example, isn't one step. It's updating insurance or documentation, getting the claim reprocessed, and then paying whatever balance remains, over weeks. Kora stays with a patient through each step, using that ongoing memory to guide them toward the right resolution instead of treating every step like a fresh start.

"I appreciate you so very much," said a patient, who recently interacted with Kora. "My heart is so grateful for you today. Thank you for listening."

What's included in Kora Platform

Kora Platform is purpose-built for healthcare revenue cycle workflows and designed to work alongside a provider's existing technology environment. The Platform orchestrates a suite of always-on AI agents across existing and new channels, including: 

• Autonomous Inbound Voice: answers inbound billing calls, verifies the patient, performs real-time eligibility checks, completes payments and resolves routine questions like balance inquiries, bill explanations, insurance capture, and collections guidance, and more without replacing existing telephony
• Autonomous Outbound Voice: proactively reaches out to patients to capture missing insurance, collect payments, resolve coordination-of-benefits denials, and assist eligible patients enroll in Medicaid
• Two-Way Text: conversational texting for billing and insurance questions, balance information, and payment, in English and Spanish
• Advanced Reporting: deeper financial, workflow, and patient-experience reporting beyond standard call center metrics for operating teams to track success metrics

Cedar is actively deploying new agentic workflows within the Kora Platform.

Results so far

To date, Kora's automated inbound calling has handled more than 600,000 patient conversations and attained a 40% inbound call containment rate and seen a 7.4% increase in patients attempting payment compared to live agents. Patients report 4 out of 5 post-call satisfaction with the Kora experience. On the outbound side, Kora has achieved a 20% pickup rate–four times the industry average, a 21% relative payment rate increase within 7 days of outreach. 

"Patients don't really want to talk about their healthcare financial struggle. Kora enables them to do it in a way that feels less threatening, and we've been pleasantly surprised with the results," said Tennille Lizarraga, Chief Revenue Cycle Officer, ApolloMD.

Kora Platform runs on Cedar's existing privacy and security program, independently audited against HITRUST and PCI DSS. It stays scoped to patient billing: automated decisions follow documented safeguards, patients can opt out, and anything clinical or out of scope routes straight to a human.

Providers can request a demo of Kora Platform at www.cedar.com/solutions/kora-ai.

About Kora Platform

Kora Platform is Cedar's agentic platform purpose-built for patient financial resolution that turns billing conversations into completed actions across voice and digital channels. It handles inbound calls, proactive outbound outreach, and two-way text, helping patients understand their balance, make a payment, update insurance, enroll in Medicaid, resolve COB denials or explore a payment plan, while giving providers full control over which capabilities they turn on. Built on nearly a decade of Cedar's patient billing data, Kora Platform reflects a simple idea: providers and patients don't need a chatbot, they need a true financial partner.

About Cedar

Patients are healthcare's fastest-growing payer class, but most billing infrastructure was built to collect from insurers, not individuals. Cedar closes that gap. Powered by more than 1.5 billion patient interactions, Cedar's AI-driven technology meets patients where they are, across billing, payments, and financial assistance, with outreach and payment options built around how people pay today. Cedar has processed over $13.6 billion in payments and supported more than 63 million patients nationwide. Health systems collect more, at lower cost, from a payer class legacy systems were never built for. To learn more, visit www.cedar.com.

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SOURCE Cedar