“ClearGage helps automate the collection of patient balances and provides flexible financing options for patients that cannot afford their medical care.”
Today, patients want to understand their care in greater depth while enjoying personalization and access to the details they need around the clock. Innovation that is designed with patient engagement at the forefront, such as flexible payment options, assists patients with gaining greater control and engagement through their experience. As a result, providers can build more meaningful and powerful relationships with the patients they serve while growing their bottom line. ClearGage gives providers an opportunity to offer flexible payment terms and financing for patients that cannot afford the healthcare services that they need. A care plan that allows patients to finance directly through the practice builds greater engagement and feels more helpful and personal.
Headquartered in Tampa Florida, ClearGage is a rapidly growing healthcare payments technology company providing innovative patient payment and financing solutions to the healthcare industry. From the beginning, ClearGage’s mission has been to enhance the consumer’s quality of life by providing flexible and ethical payment solutions that enable them to receive and pay for the healthcare products or services they need or want. Chip Hunziker, founder and CEO of ClearGage, has been spearheading the company towards great heights. Armed with over 25 years of experience in the healthcare, financial services and employee benefits industries, Chip’s passion for transparency and enhancing the patient financial experience are what have always driven the direction of ClearGage.
According to Chip, the world in which patients live has transformed in recent years – one-click shopping, fast delivery and other on-demand services have forced healthcare providers to update how they interact with their patients. Tools like ClearGage that are simple, meet needs with ease and do so by empowering patients are in high demand. ClearGage helps reduce the cost to collect on patient balances by sending patients their balance via text and email presenting options for online bill pay and even enrollment in payment plans.
The steadfast leader adds, that with high deductible plans on the rise, many patients elect to not move forward with treatment due to the lack of financial options and price transparency. Providers that can accurately determine patient responsibility prior to the visit then present multiple payment options will build greater trust with their patients while also maximizing their revenue by increasing the number of patients that they can see. ClearGage helps patients to get the care that they need and want without the usual financial hassle. “The combination of our ability to provide financing options to patients that otherwise wouldn’t qualify in conjunction with our patient payments and patient engagement platform tools make us truly unique,” says Chip. “ClearGage provides price transparency with ClearCalcTM, patient financing with ClearFundTM, and streamlines the collection of patient balances with ClearConnectTM.”
In an instance, an urgent care center in Tampa (FL) was struggling to collect on patient balances that were owed after insurance adjudication. Prior to implementing ClearGage, they suffered from a 19% patient collection rate and waited on average 125 days to collect payment for rendered services. By using ClearGage’s Account on File technology, AutoPayTM, it allowed the urgent care center to safely store patient payment account information to pay for balances after the claim adjudicated and exact responsibility was known based on a preauthorized patient agreement. Within less than a year, the practice had increased their patient collection rate to 65% while additionally seeing a 50-60% reduction in their paper statement costs and significantly shortened the time to receive payments. Offering unique customer experience is what keeps the company in the forefront in this industry. For the days to come, the company is excited about the release of their direct to consumer product which will significantly enhance financing options for physician practices and their patients.
