by CFI is a leading fintech company offering financial solutions for dental providers to increase their revenue management and profitability. CFI currently serves thousands of dental and medical practices across the U.S. Abella, one of their proprietary platforms, offers automated patient accounts receivable management for dental group practices. CFI’s human approach to revenue management has established the company among the fastest-growing fintech providers in the healthcare industry.
In 2018, CFI began hearing from dentists how challenging patient A/R was to manage. Many times, insurance payments would come back and not cover the full cost of treatment, meaning that the patient was suddenly stuck with a “surprise” balance. The practice would then make phone calls and mail statements to patients, but there was little to no insight or engagement, making the efforts ineffective and costly.
To solve that pain point for their dental group practice customers, CFI created Abella, a patient accounts receivable (A/R) software that gives patients a way to pay their outstanding balances either in full or by choosing a monthly payment plan – directly from their smart device.
Abella creates efficiencies for both the group practice and the patient
Abella easily integrates with all leading practice management software and looks for the patients who have a balance with the practice, but don’t have any open insurance claims that are still pending payment. Abella was designed with growth-oriented group practices in mind. Not only will it integrate with a practice’s existing software, but it is also designed to scale with the organization as it grows.
The Abella software sends text messages and email communications that are branded for each location so that patients know it’s coming from the dental practice and isn’t a scam. If a patient doesn’t acknowledge the message right away, Abella automates the follow-up process so that the dental team can spend more time with the patients who are in the office and in the chair.
Operationally for the practice and the team members, nothing really changes, except that they no longer have to spend time and money to send paper statements and make phone calls. Abella simply automates the collections and follow-up process for the practice making managing patient A/R a breeze.
Valuable Insights
Manual patient A/R collections is time consuming for team members, and the practice has very little way to determine what’s working and where their priorities should be. Abella makes it easy to get visibility and insight into the payment data. For instance, users can easily sort the data by region or by location. They can see things like average days to receive payment, outstanding balances, which patients are paying, how quickly they pay based on their last visit date, and more. Essentially anything you can dream of, Abella can make available and visible to the group practice, and in real time.
ROI
Abella boasts a strong track record. The company says that historically, Abella has been able to collect anywhere from 5% to 30% of a practice’s 90-day patient A/R after they first engage with them. All in all, it amounts to a significant amount of money that most group practices have otherwise given up on.
Statistically, of the patients who pay in full, about 35% of them pay on the first or second e-statement message, the company says. Patients who get the messages are making the payment within seven days, which means the practice is collecting 35% of what is owed to the practice before a paper statement could even hit the patient’s mailbox. This means practices are getting money in faster and increasing their revenue for the year.
Seamless Patient Experience
The company points to its seamless, patient-focused workflow as the reason for this success. From a patient standpoint, phone calls, especially phone calls about owing money, are intrusive and can be disruptive to their day.
With that in mind, Abella has created a process that removes as much friction as possible from the process for the consumer. Consumers don’t want to have to download an app or set up an account to make payments, especially when the amounts are small. With Abella’s process, when patients get the text or email, all they have to do is click the link to see and pay their balance. The message takes them right in to see what they owe, why they owe it, and gives them the ability to click and pay right there or opt in for a short-term payment plan.
From the patient’s perspective, the communications from Abella are frequent, friendly, and consistent. Ultimately, it gives patients the ability to easily pay their balance, without downloading an app, without registering and giving any additional information, all on their own time at their convenience. To learn more visit abellaar.com.
