Meeting Treasury’s Strategic Priorities with Smarter Patient Payment Technology

Healthcare finance is at a crossroads. Patients are responsible for more of their care costs than ever before, yet most don’t know their full bill when they walk out the door. For treasury leaders, that uncertainty makes forecasting harder, collections slower, and write-offs more common.

It’s no longer enough to think of patient payment systems as a back-office tool. They’ve become a strategic lever for protecting revenue, managing liquidity, and improving the patient experience.

Why Patient Payments Create Treasury Headaches

In most industries, payment is simple: the price is clear, the customer pays, and the transaction is complete. Healthcare is different. Patients often make a co-pay at the time of service (which varies from patient to patient and type of service) and the final bill depends on insurance, deductibles, and contracts that can take weeks or months to resolve.

For treasury, that delay creates three major challenges:

1. Cash flow uncertainty that complicates liquidity planning.
2. Likelihood of collecting decreases over time, increasing write-offs that erode margins, with some systems unable to collect more than half of patient balances.
3. Administrative drag as staff pursue payments and reconcile accounts manually.

Margins are already tight. The last thing treasury leaders need is unpredictable receivables.

The Impact of Modern Payment Technology 

The good news is that new technology is helping health systems turn payments from a pain point into a source of strength. The most effective solutions focus on:

• Integration – Connecting seamlessly with EMRs, ERPs, and treasury workflows for real-time reconciliation.
• Flexibility – Providing patients with convenient ways to pay, including mobile, online, in-person, and self-service kiosks, as well as their preferred methods such as credit/debit cards, card-on-file, digital wallets, and payment plans.
• Compliance – Protecting sensitive data and meeting HIPAA, PCI, and other healthcare-specific standards.
• Scalability – Supporting complex, multi-location healthcare systems without disruption.

When systems work together, treasury gains visibility, patients gain convenience, and health systems collect more of what they’re owed.

Building a No-Gap Ecosystem

Payment gaps cost money. Missed integrations and clunky processes slow collections and fuel bad debt. Industry data shows 50–55% of patient balances from patients with private insurance and Medicare Advantage are not collected and in some systems, it’s even higher.

By contrast, tightly integrated payment platforms reduce friction and speed up collections. For treasury, that means fewer surprises, stronger forecasts, and less reliance on costly manual work.

Choosing the Right Partner

Not all payment partners are created equal. Treasury leaders should look for solutions that:

• Demonstrated expertise with health systems, backed by deep knowledge of patient payments, healthcare technology, and operational processes, with proven results across peer organizations.
• Deliver seamless integration across EHRs and other core healthcare systems to ensure real-time reconciliation and efficient workflows.
• Put patients first offering simple, convenient payment options that increase collection success.
• Provide responsive support that scales with the health system.
• Offer true flexibility by offering end-to-end solutions and bank-agnostic, giving treasury leaders the freedom to work with the banking partner they prefer today and change as needed in the future. This flexibility is especially important as healthcare systems consolidate and require solutions that can adapt to shifting structures and banking relationships.

Evaluating partners through this lens helps treasury align technology with enterprise financial goals, not just payment operations.

The Treasury Imperative

For treasury leaders, optimizing patient payments isn’t just about smoother transactions. It’s about financial resilience. Modern payment systems reduce leakage, strengthen cash flow, and give finance teams the predictability they need to plan ahead.

As patient responsibility continues to rise and margins remain thin, treasury leaders must ensure their payment solutions are modern, flexible, and precisely aligned with their organization’s financial and operational needs.