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Elevating Healthcare Payments with Omnichannel Solutions · Becker’s Healthcare Digital Health + Health IT

• 0:00
  Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the
• 0:02
  Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm delighted to be joined
• 0:04
  today by Ryan Natzke, who's the chief revenue
• 0:07
  officer at Trust Commerce, which is a sphere
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  company. Ryan, thank you so much for being
• 0:11
  here with us today. So before we dive
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  into some questions and pick your reins a
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  little bit here, can you give us a
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  60 second overview of your role at Trust
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  Commerce? Sure thing. So I am our chief
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  revenue officer. So I'm in charge of earlier
• 0:23
  my team is in charge of really growing
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  the company both from a direct sales standpoint,
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  from a partnership standpoint,
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  and working with our existing customers to make
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  sure that they're kind of aware and know
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  what we have in addition to maybe some
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  of the stuff that they're already doing. And
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  what we do is we help with with
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  integrated patient payments. Mhmm. So we help collect
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  on the patient responsibility side of things. And
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  for the most part, if we're doing our
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  job right, the end user, whether that's a
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  staff member taking a payment at the front
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  desk or a patient paying online,
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  they don't really know even exist. We wanna
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  be integrated and embedded within other systems to
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  help them securely and compliantly take payments, and
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  then we handle the rest from there. Mhmm.
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  And such a key important area in health
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  systems at the moment, a ton of partnerships
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  in this space. So excited to pick your
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  brains and hear a little bit more about
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  what you do on the front end. Can
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  you to start, can you tell us about
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  challenges the health care providers face and what
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  opportunities
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  does
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  adopting omnichannel payment solutions offer for them and
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  their patients?
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  Yeah. So the interesting
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  thing about health care payments compared to what
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  you might see in other industries
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  is patients pay all sorts of different ways.
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  When you think of going to Target,
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  you pay either online or you pay when
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  you check out.
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  When you pay at a gas station, you
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  pay before you get gas. But if you're
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  a patient, you might pay a little bit
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  beforehand, which might be a co pay. It
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  might be an estimate on something that's gonna
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  be done. It could be a down payment
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  on a procedure that's gonna happen.
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  You might pay when you get to the
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  facility, and that could be at a kiosk.
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  That could be talking to the person checking
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  you in. You could pay. And then after
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  the fact, you could pay online. You could
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  pay over the phone. You might be set
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  up for a payment plan.
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  You might pay with your credit card. You
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  may pay with your bank account. You might
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  have an HSA or FSA card. So when
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  we think about omnichannel payments and health care,
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  it truly is omnichannel. Any way that you
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  can potentially pay a health care system needs
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  to be able to accept
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  that, and have that work. And some of
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  the challenges there is you might not have
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  the same system in place for all of
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  those workflows.
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  So trying to provide a consistent user experience,
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  like, patient experience
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  for the patient when they pay. So that
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  if they're paying beforehand at the point of
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  service or after the fact,
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  it feels like they're dealing with 1 organization
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  and not like, oh, it's easy if I
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  pay afterwards, but it's really hard if I
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  pay at the point of service.
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  So it's managing that and making it work
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  with all the different systems that are kind
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  of underlying for that for that workflows. Mhmm.
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  Can you expand on what sort of digital
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  tools providers should consider to deliver more transparency
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  and, like you said, convenience
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  in improving the patient experience and also collections
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  as well? Yeah. So there historically has not
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  been a lot of transparency at all when
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  it comes to health care billing or the
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  patient collection side of it. Things like the
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  no surprises act and being able to provide
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  estimates ahead of time really helps that out,
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  but we're still at the early stages of
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  that. I don't think it's very common yet
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  where,
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  when you schedule an appointment, somebody's gonna tell
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  you, oh, this is how much it's gonna
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  cost.
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  You can ask ahead of time, and you
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  might get an estimate, but it's still an
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  estimate.
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  So
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  being more proactive with providing an estimate upfront
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  really helps with that transparency.
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  And transparency goes a long way because it
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  makes it so that the patient can plan
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  for something.
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  In many cases, health care is not a
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  planned event, but let's say you need a
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  hip replacement or a knee replacement.
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  Usually, those aren't acute things that have to
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  happen instantly,
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  but it's gonna be helpful to know how
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  much that's gonna cost and how much your
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  insurance is gonna cover. And that could be
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  different in the first half of the year
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  if you when you didn't hit your deductible
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  versus the back half of the year when
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  you maybe have hit your deductible.
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  So being able to potentially budget, set up
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  a payment plan,
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  that transparency allows for better decision making and
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  a better communication between the provider and the
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  patient to make sure that they pay what
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  is owed, but they also understand why they
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  owe what they owe. Mhmm. So, right, obviously,
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  consumerism is a rising trend across the health
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  care spectrum with more patients shopping around for
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  the best care. As providers work to offer
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  a more retail retail like payment experience, how
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  important are integrated solutions here? Are there specific
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  examples that stand out to you? Yeah. So,
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  obviously, do a little bit of plug for
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  the work that we're doing in terms of
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  being able to help out with that. But
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  so that retail experience ties in with the
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  transparency we talked about before of kind of
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  knowing what you owe and why you owe
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  it. But it also
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  is allowing the patient to pay the way
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  they wanna pay. So like I was we
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  were talking about earlier, there's credit cards, debit
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  cards, HSA, FSA cards, but also Apple Pay
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  and Google Pay and PayPal and Venmo.
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  And health care is traditionally not known as
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  being the most risk taking forward thinking when
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  it comes to some of these things. It's
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  a it's a risk adverse industry,
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  but there are areas of the country where,
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  maybe there's a lower or less banked population.
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  We work with a group in Hawaii that
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  was really pushing for PayPal because not everybody
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  has a bank account, and they just use
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  PayPal as their bank account, essentially. So they
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  needed to make sure that we could
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  have them accept payments via PayPal for the
• 5:22
  patient care that they were giving. So doing
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  stuff like that helps
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  that health care payment experience feel a lot
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  more like what you might expect in other
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  other industries
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  where it's it's a lot more than just
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  a credit card. Mhmm. Ryan, fascinating to hear
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  more about what you do and a little
• 5:37
  bit more about Trust Commerce. Thank you so
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  much for taking the time to share with
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  your insights with us today, and thank you
• 5:42
  to Trust Commerce for sponsoring today's content. Thanks,
• 5:44
  Trevor.