Self Pay Patients Don?t Have to become Bad Debt Write Offs: nTelagent

Missed opportunities: that’s why most health care self-pay accounts end up being written off, says Earl Winters, president of nTelagent, Inc., a health care information technology firm based in Nashville, Tenn.   

Winters sees no reason for that to continue now that his firm has developed for hospitals and acute care centers its Self-Pay Management System that sorts and categorizes self-pay accounts, according to a patient’s ability to pay. “Our system classifies [accounts by] charity, high-capacity and moderate-capacity to pay, and which patients should qualify for government programs,” Winters said. 

Winters said nTelagent’s web-based system moves what have been back-end revenue cycle management activities to the front end of the service process. It does so by allowing hospitals to combine their processes with information gathered about the patient at the point of service, including comprehensive health care coverage and patient payment obligations, demographics and net assets (“Better Patient Records Could Reduce Hospital Debt,” April 15).

The system tells providers what discounts to apply to an uninsured patient, and whether the patient is eligible for charity care or government aid. It also suggests financial arrangements for payment.  Released about a year ago, the system is being used by hospitals and clinics in inpatient and outpatient settings in at least 30 states.

“We pull from over 50 databases and through algorithms determine a patient’s capacity to pay,” said Laura Campbell, a spokesperson for nTelagent. “The algorithm is a better predictor of patients’ capacity to pay.”

Winters founded nTelagent five years ago after seeing an opportunity to apply his background in ecommerce to healthcare. Initially, the company focused on call center technology. It wasn’t long before customers were asking for help managing revenues on a web-based platform. “At the time, the problem was the uninsured,” Winters said. “But the market started shifting and a bigger percentage is now patient responsibility or government need.”

Winters wouldn’t disclose nTelagent’s revenues, but said the company’s revenues are projected to grow 25 to 30 percent a year over the next few years as unpaid, self-pay accounts make up a larger share of health care providers’ bad debt.