With Cedar Pay, Talkiatry Takes the Stress Out of Paying for Mental Healthcare

With Cedar Pay, 96% of Talkiatry patients pay their bills online, recentering the patient experience on treatment and wellbeing

NEW YORK, April 2, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Talkiatry, a leading provider of high-quality, in-network psychiatric care, is now offering simple and transparent online payment solutions through its partnership with Cedar, an end-to-end healthcare financial engagement platform. As one of the largest employers of psychiatrists in the United States, Talkiatry now streamlines payments for thousands of patients every month.

The United States is facing an unprecedented mental health crisis. One in five U.S. adults are affected by mental illness each year and poor mental health is seen as a top threat to public health. Access to care is often blocked by stigma and a shortage of mental health providers—but one of the biggest barriers is the financial experience.

Even with health insurance, stressful billing processes pose a significant hurdle to pursuing and continuing treatment. Focused on ensuring a caring and human-centered approach at every step of treatment, Talkiatry saw an opportunity to improve the patient's financial experience in mental healthcare by engaging with Cedar.

"At Talkiatry, we're committed to eliminating barriers that prevent patients from accessing quality psychiatric care and therapy," said Todd Yu, Chief Financial Officer of Talkiatry. "Billing friction creates an extra layer of stress and anxiety at a time when patients should be focused on treatment. Cedar allows us to cater to patients' needs."

Talkiatry implemented Cedar Pay in just 12 weeks to bring nearly every payment online, with a stress-free experience that includes:

• Personalized communications across billing touchpoints
• Clear statements and an online help center to provide faster answers for patients
• Putting patients in control of when and how they pay, with convenient payment options like Apple Pay and card-on-file

The Cedar Pay experience has resulted in an impressive 96% digital self-service payment rate and 86% patient satisfaction with the billing process over the first year.

"Patients feel like they can trust what they're being billed for. We're not just giving them the CPT and ICD-10 codes, we're helping them understand the services," said Ales Cejka, Vice President of Revenue Cycle at Talkiatry.

"We know that the billing experience is directly correlated to health outcomes. Nearly 50% of consumers say their well-being or healing has been negatively impacted by difficulty paying a healthcare bill," said Florian Otto, CEO and Co-founder of Cedar. "Our partnership with Talkiatry has proven that with a simplified, transparent and digital-first payment experience, providers and patients can focus on what matters most: quality care and treatment."

To learn more about Talkiatry's successful partnership with Cedar, read the full case study here.

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) and YouTube.

About Talkiatry
Talkiatry is a national mental health practice that provides in-network psychiatry and therapy. They were co-founded by a patient and a triple-board-certified psychiatrist to solve the problems both groups face in accessing and providing the highest quality mental healthcare. 60% of adults in the U.S. with a diagnosable mental illness go untreated every year because care is inaccessible, while 45% of clinicians are out of network with insurers because reimbursement rates are low and paperwork is unduly burdensome. With innovative technology and a human-centered philosophy, Talkiatry provides patients with the care they need—and allows psychiatrists to focus on why they got into medicine. Learn more at www.talkiatry.com and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

Contact

For Cedar
Jenny Fiegoli
[email protected] 

For Talkiatry
[email protected] 

SOURCE Cedar