Ophthalmic ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) must be diligent about carefully following all regulations regarding payment for elective procedures, such as premium cataract surgery or laser procedures. Often, to ensure compliance, patients must make separate payments to multiple entities at different points in time. For example, if a co-managing optometrist is involved in a case, it could mean as many as three separate payments—one to the surgeon, one to the ASC, and one to the optometrist handling the follow-up. For a premium cataract patient having both eyes done in separate procedures, that experience is doubled.
Having to write multiple checks or run credit cards more than once can be unsettling for patients, who may feel that they are paying too much for their procedure. This can leave patients frustrated. But now, there is a solution. CoFi, a multiparty payments platform, enables patients to pay all relevant providers involved with a procedure in one transaction.
“Neither the patient nor the provider nor the ASC are happy with there being numerous payment events—but it’s what historically has been required in order to be compliant,” explains Sean Hanlon, cofounder and chief executive officer of CoFi. “What CoFi does is allow the patient to make separate payments to each party at one time, right in the surgeon’s practice, where they’re making the purchase decision.”
Protecting Patient Satisfaction
These days, people are increasingly used to services and platforms that make their lives easier. So, when it comes time to pay for their ophthalmic surgery procedures, they aren’t thrilled if it’s a complicated process. CoFi “uncomplicates things,” says Mr. Hanlon, who compares the service to bundling travel services—flight, hotel, and car—into one simple fee. “It’s easy and it’s efficient—which is what people want,” he says.
R. Krishna Sanka, MD, a cataract and refractive surgeon with the Eye Centers of Racine and Kenosha in Wisconsin, says that remaining compliant does pose a burden for both surgeons and patients. “It’s a headache for the patient to have to make more than one payment,” he says. “CoFi removes the burden of multiple payments from the patient’s shoulders and handles it on the back end. It facilitates payments in a compliant way. Now the patient doesn’t have to worry about what payment goes where.”
Patient satisfaction is critical, notes Dr. Sanka, particularly when patients are paying more for premium lenses. He feels that CoFi helps improve patient satisfaction. “It would be an extreme reaction, but you do have to worry about those patients who might get frustrated by all those payments and say, ‘It’s just not worth it, I’ll do a standard lens,’” he admits. “We want patients to feel like they’ve walked away with a good experience. But the payment process before CoFi was cumbersome.”
Dr. Sanka says that the ASC where he works appreciates the CoFi platform. “They really didn’t like to ask patients to pay when they walked in the door on the day of their procedure,” he explains. “Now, they have verification on hand that the payment to the surgery center has processed. That means the patient walks in, checks in, and has their procedure. There is no exchange of payment that day.”
Extending Credit
Michael Lewis, director of operations for Advanced Laser and Cataract Center in Oklahoma City, has had a similar experience since adopting the CoFi platform last year. “Our optometrists do not like collecting their own fees,” Mr. Lewis says. “They’re often uncomfortable with collecting so much money. It is much easier to have everything put into one payment. We can allocate our ASC cost and our clinic cost with one easy transaction, and even include the OD’s cost if there is a co-managing optometrist involved, too. It really does simplify the process.”
CoFi’s partnership with Alphaeon Credit, a company that provides loans for elective or non-reimbursed healthcare procedures, treatments, and services, has also been a benefit, says Mr. Lewis. “We use Alphaeon as our primary credit provider for patients who want to finance their procedure,” he explains. “They want to finance the entire procedure, not pieces of it. CoFi’s partnership with Alphaeon allows them to do that.”
When ASCs and ophthalmologists use different financing options, or don’t provide financing, the issue of compliance with rules for remittances can be further complicated. The agreement between CoFi and Alphaeon Credit provides an easy-to-use solution that will handle loan funds conveniently and compliantly, ensuring that they are distributed to the appropriate parties for the elective procedure. And beginning this year, patients will also be able to use a CareCredit credit card to finance their consolidated care costs. The CareCredit card, issued by Synchrony, is accepted by more than 225,000 health care providers.
“[Providing financing options through CoFi may be] enough for a patient to convert who otherwise may not have,” Mr. Lewis says. “We have always lived by the idea that you don’t make it hard for people to pay, or they won’t. It’s the same reason we accept credit cards and their associated transaction fees. We want to make it as easy as possible for patients to pay—and they will.”
Saving Staff Time
There’s no question that billing can come with an administrative burden, but CoFi looks to reduce that. “CoFi saves time for ASCs because the staff no longer has to make calls for payment of premium lens fees. The premium fees are collected upfront, well ahead of surgery day,” says Mr. Hanlon. “Our product also eliminates time spent dealing with patient confusion over the payment at the ASC when they recently paid their surgeon.”
Dr. Sanka says that CoFi has simplified the payment and collection process for his staff. “Before CoFi, we would have to sit with the patient and tell them to write one check to the ophthalmologist, another one to the ASC, and possibly a third to a co-managing optometrist. And, if you were having two eyes done, you were doing that whole process twice. It was not user friendly—but there was no other option. Now, we can just pull up the package the patient wants and give them one invoice that includes each party’s respective fees.”
The system is also easy to use. Mr. Lewis says to be trained on the CoFi system, staff participated in a half-hour on-boarding call. “It’s cloud-based and user-friendly,” he says. “CoFi gets everything set up, customized with your specific fees. Then, you just click on the package you want, and the patient gets billed one price. You can see on the back end who got paid for what on the invoice.”
Dr. Sanka says that the multiparty payments platform is something every surgery center, every co-managing optometrist, and every ophthalmologist can benefit from. “Using a service like CoFi is going to pay itself back tenfold,” he says. “Not only will staff save a lot of hours explaining the ins and outs of financials and chasing down payments, but your patients will also walk away happier.”
For these reasons, Dr. Sanka says that the small transaction fee they pay for CoFi is “easily worth it.”
“I’d call it a no-brainer, “he says. “The amount of time that we save is significant. And for a busy surgery center, dealing with multiple surgeons from multiple practices, they really need to find ways to simplify things—and this is one of them. My biggest question is, why didn’t we have this sooner? It has definitely been needed for a while.” OASC
