Cedar Unveils Bold Solutions for Healthcare Affordability in 2023, With Continued Focus in Year Ahead

Through a connected approach to healthcare billing, Cedar will expand its product offerings to lower the cost of care in 2024

NEW YORK, Jan. 8, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Healthcare drives more Americans to bankruptcy than any other sector, and the high cost of care is making consumers sicker. Nearly half of U.S. consumers say that difficulty paying a medical bill has negatively impacted their healing or well-being. That's why in 2023, Cedar, an end-to-end healthcare financial engagement platform, brought together providers, payers, financial institutions and government assistance to address the affordability crisis in healthcare.

As of December 2023, Cedar engages with 25 million patients on an annualized basis. Over the past year, Cedar launched a record number of successful product offerings, strategic initiatives and partnerships to ease the burden of healthcare bills for these patients across the United States.

Cedar's new Affordability Navigator helps ease healthcare costs and increase insurance coverage

• Cedar's Affordability Navigator connects consumers with outside funding sources and self-service tools to make care more affordable, including Medicaid enrollment in partnership with Advocatia.
• South Carolina-based AnMed was the first to launch the combined Medicaid enrollment solution offered by Cedar and Advocatia. As part of the health system's commitment to embracing innovation to meet the needs of its patient population, AnMed is increasing insurance coverage and improving access to care at a time when Medicaid disenrollment is expected to impact up to 300,000 South Carolinians.

Cedar's investments in GenerativeAI, machine learning and large language models will improve billing transparency and access

• In August 2023, Cedar and Google Cloud announced a collaboration to build AI-powered tools that will assist patients in understanding and resolving their healthcare bills. These new GenAI tools, which build on Cedar's existing expertise in machine learning, will be able to guide patients through resolving their bills.
• Cedar is also leveraging machine learning to determine the optimal bill discounts for patients, at scale. Using machine learning, Cedar helped lower the cost of care for the most vulnerable self-pay patients while boosting patient payments by 5%.

Cedar's real-time health benefit account balance integrations enable patients to unlock hidden funds when paying for care

• Through connections with health benefit account banks and administrators, patients can view and pay with HSA and FSA balances within the Cedar billing experience—allowing patients to easily take advantage of tax-free dollars to manage out-of-pocket expenses.
• Following last year's announcement that Pittsburgh-based Highmark Inc. and Allegheny Health Network (AHN) would be the first to implement Cedar Pay with the Payer Intelligence Layer, AHN saw a 33% lift in HSA / FSA utilization, as well as 90% customer satisfaction.

Cedar's vision is a healthcare system where everyone can easily and affordably pursue the care they need. In 2024, Cedar will expand its affordability initiatives by adding new partnerships across payers, providers and government funding agencies that will make communities healthier—fundamentally reducing the cost of care.

"The stories of medical debt and patient suffering over the past year paint a clear picture: the current operating model for healthcare billing is not a formula for financial success," said Florian Otto, CEO and Co-founder of Cedar. "We're building something revolutionary in healthcare—a model for financial health that puts the consumer at the center. As we head into 2024, I'm looking forward to introducing new ways to help providers advance affordability and access."

Cedar will be attending the 2024 Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, taking place January 8 - 11 in San Francisco, CA, to share more about how their bold solutions for financial health will lower the cost of care and improve outcomes in 2024. To learn more about Cedar, visit www.cedar.com.

About Cedar
Cedar is committed to improving the healthcare financial experience for all. With an innovative platform that connects providers and payers, Cedar empowers healthcare consumers with an optimized journey—all powered by data science and interactive design. For Cedar clients, this leads to increased payments, more efficient operations and greater consumer loyalty. To learn more about why leading U.S. healthcare organizations trust Cedar to manage the end-to-end consumer experience from pre-registration to post-visit billing, visit www.cedar.com and join us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube.

Contact
Jenny Fiegoli
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SOURCE Cedar