Pamplona Capital Management said it has made a strategic financial investment in Patientco, a leading payment technology company built specifically for healthcare. With patient payments often constituting as much as one third of hospital revenues, more than 500 hospitals and physicians practices nationwide have already turned to Patientco to address this fastest growing piece of the healthcare revenue pie.
Patientco is a 2013 Signature Graduate company of the Advanced Technology Development Center.
Terms were not disclosed, but Pamplona’s financial commitment will support Patientco in its pursuit of key growth initiatives that will further establish the company as a market leader in patient payment technology, including:
- Accelerated expansion of Patientco’s sales footprint nationally through the central and western United States.
- Increased market leadership with Patientco Essentials, Patientco’s newest payments offering that allows healthcare providers to automatically manage, consolidate and reconcile every patient payment across all their point-of-service, patient access, business office and 3rd party locations.
- Development of valuable functionality with the nation’s leading integrated healthcare systems and enhancement of interoperability with new and existing strategic healthcare IT partners.
Pamplona’s investment in Patientco also includes a commercial agreement to embed Patientco’s offerings into Pamplona’s MedAssets Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) and Precyse business, which were both acquired by Pamplona in 2015 and are being merged in the first quarter of 2016. The combination of services and technologies across patient access, health information management (HIM), central business office, patient payments and accounts receivable positions MedAssets RCM and Precyse as a complete, end-to-end integrated solution in the market.
“Patientco’s patient payment solution addresses a great need for healthcare providers across the country. Pamplona chose Patientco after a careful examination of several payment solutions and we believe the company is clearly differentiated from its competitors,” said Dr. Jeremy Gelber, a partner at Pamplona Capital Management. “Pamplona’s investment not only allows Patientco to reach a broader audience, it makes MedAssets/Precyse the first company to offer integrated services across both insurance and patient payments.”
The agreement paves the way for Patientco to embed its payment solution into MedAssets’ RCM services and Precyse’s HIM services, immediately extending Patientco’s reach to more than 3,000 health systems and 1,000 ambulatory care centers across the country. As a result, Patientco, which has experienced rapid growth and again doubled its annual total processing value (“TPV”) in 2015, expects to accelerate its goal of processing $10 billion in annual TPV by the end of 2018.
“Working with Pamplona reinforces our trajectory as the go-to partner for any healthcare provider or healthcare IT vendor that processes patient payments,” said Bird Blitch, co-founder and CEO of Patientco. “Historically, payment processing and healthcare haven’t worked well together, but we are changing that. With Pamplona’s support, we will continue in our mission to eliminate the payment burden so that providers can focus on delivering care and patients can experience a streamlined, clear payment process.”
Pamplona’s investment in Patientco is the second financing round for Patientco since its founding in 2009, following a 2012 investment from BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners LLC (“BCBSVP “) and Chicago-based Sandbox Industries.
“Healthcare payments continue to be a massive opportunity to create positive change for patients, providers, and payers alike,” said Tom Hawes, M.D., Chairman of the Board for Patientco and a Managing Director of Sandbox Industries representing BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners. “We are thrilled to see this funding for Patientco, a company on a mission to be that positive change.”
Patientco will remain an independently operated company, led by Blitch and guided by an experienced team.