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Paymentus Holdings Inc., a provider of cloud-based bill-payment technology, has reached an agreement with health-care information-technology provider Altera Digital Health Inc. to include its electronic bill- presentment and payments platform in Altera’s suite of healthcare IT solutions.
The deal is expected to streamline the billing and payment processes for health-care providers through the digitization of patient billing and payments, both companies say. As a result, providers will be able to deliver up-to-the-minute patient-billing information via a patient’s electronic health record and send statements along with payment reminders, as well as updates via secure via email and text messages. In addition, health-care providers will be able to receive and post payments from a variety of payment sources.
“The ability to engage patients through e-mail and text, for example, can help drive more effective collection by meeting patients where they are,” says Jay Adams, group leader at Altera, in an email message.
Paymentus’ platform supports a variety of payment options including the automated clearing house, secure interactive voice response, text, email, and chat, as well as PayPal, Venmo, ApplePay, and GooglePay.
Digital billing and payments have been a historic pain point for health-care providers and patients and have been slow to take root in the health-care industry, according to Dushyant Sharma, founder and chief executive at Paymentus. Some 71% of health-care providers collect from patients with paper and manual processes, according to J.P. Morgan’s 2024 annual Trends in Healthcare Payments report. Health-care providers’ reliance on manual billing processes runs counter to consumers’ preference for digital billing and payments, as 75% of consumers want to pay their medical bills online, says the J.P. Morgan report.
“Working with Altera, we will offer the modern, convenient Paymentus customer billing experience to health-care providers and patients as a component of their health-care IT platforms, driving higher patient satisfaction and more efficient, secure back-office operations,” Sharma says in a statement.
