Geisinger is teaming up with fintech startup PayZen to offer a new artificial-intelligence-backed medical billing tool that aims to make care more affordable for patients.
Patients will have the option to pay their bills in a lump sum or over several months on a timeline that is customized to meet their personal financial needs, Geisinger said. If they choose the latter option, the payment plans include no interest or additional fees.
All patients with an out-of-pocket bill of $250 or more will be able to use this new payment option, the health system said.
Itzik Cohen, PayZen CEO and co-founder, told Fierce Healthcare the platform is designed to feel like e-commerce, calling it an "Affirm for healthcare."
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"Healthcare is as big of a market when it comes to payments as e-commerce," Cohen said. "There's a real need there."
Geisinger has already begun offering these payment plans to patients and found that 82% of patients chose to enroll after receiving a customized payment plan. The average monthly payment is $52, Geisinger said.
The health system said it and PayZen are enrolling hundreds of people per month in the payment plans.
Cohen said the partnership came together following what he called an educational session, during which the PayZen team met with experts at Geisinger to learn about how they could fit in the healthcare payment equation.
Rather than merely providing advice on where to go next, Geisinger signed on as PayZen's first major health system partner, he said.
"We did not aim to get Geisinger as our first pilot customer; that was just sheer luck," Cohen said.
He said the company is now working to get more health systems on board and to find ways to look even further upstream. The goal would be to ensure people enroll in payment options before they receive a service such as surgery to ensure they're not passing on critical care due to cost.
"We want to make healthcare more accessible to people," Cohen said.