Friendly Co-Pay and Deductible Funding

Last year, according to the data crunching gnomes in Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) basement, more than $375 billion was paid by U.S. patients out of their own pocketfor healthcare. As a percent of the total, that’s about 15%.

With co-pays routinely reaching thousands of dollars for orthopedic procedures, that out-of-pocket figure is rising fast. In 2018, it bumped up more than 3%. Total joint sales, by comparison, barely rose 2%.

What happens when a patient can’t afford the $4,000+ deductible? Well, no pay usually means no treatment. No one is happy.

Ok, how about a loan to pay the patient portion of the fee?

The 15% Solution: Credit Cards

Third-party credit card issuers, who are always looking for creative ways to slip their cards into everyone’s wallet (What’s in your wallet?) have jumped into this $375 billion market. With interest rates as high as 20%, that’s an extraordinarily lucrative opportunity.

Twenty percent of $375 billion is $75 billion. Seventy-five billion in interest payments is a market that is larger, seriously, than the total hip, total knee and spine surgery equipment and supplies market—combined!

So, how’s it working so far?

If you’re a patient or medical provider, not great.

Unfortunately, third-party credit card issuers have a different way of dealing with patients than the typical orthopedic clinic. And when a patient runs into issues with that credit card company or medical financier, they often conflate it with the orthopedic practice.

In the patient’s mind, they HAD to take out a high-priced credit card or medical loan to get their hip replacement from Dr. Smith. They may love their new hip but hate the impersonal collections treatment.

Is this a necessary evil for today’s modern orthopedic practice, or is there another, better way?

MedGreen From Georgia

Recently, news about a new type of medical finance company based in Dublin, Georgia, crossed our desk. We had a chance to talk to one of the orthopedic physicians who uses the company and we got excited about what we heard.

The company’s name is MedGreen. They’ve re-imagined the method associated with patient payment plans.

The company was founded by Craig Taylor, Tim Donovan, and Kenny Kight who have a total of 20+ years of software/collections business experience.

Before MedGreen, they were providing collections and software support to the criminal justice systems of Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi. So, they know a thing or two about payment processing and collections.

How MedGreen Works

MedGreen enables the medical provider to profit from patient payments using their software, private label credit cards and collection team. The goal is to help patients get the timely care they need and enable the physician practice to collect and profit from delayed patient payments.

That’s right.

The payments don’t go to Wilmington, Delaware. They go to Tyler, Texas, or Bend, Oregon or Hollywood, Florida or wherever that physician’s practice might be.

None of the current third-party credit suppliers help physician practices profit from the finance agreements (they want to keep the potential $75 billion in interest and late fees for themselves).

MedGreen flips the table on that model. MedGreen turns the physician’s practice into a better bank. A bank, in other words, with the same commitment to patient service and building long-term relationships that is at the core of every successful orthopedic practice.

As an orthopedic physician who uses MedGreen explained to OTW: “This concept is going to be attractive to medium-sized and larger surgical practices and even hospital systems. The benefits of MedGreen’s system include better data/billing processing, an opportunity for the provider group to financially profit from delayed payments via interest charges and late fees (like every other finance agreement), risk stratification (credit scores), and even loan collateralization in certain cases. Medical providers have become sub-prime lenders, and they’re not very good at it.”

Who Collects the Bad Debts?

MedGreen takes care of that. The physician practice just concentrates on treating the patient. “MedGreen removes the potential negative impression/acrimony that is created when the provider tries to aggressively collect delinquent payment.”

MedGreen’s web address is MedGreen.com. Their toll-free phone number is 844-634-7336.