Deal 'heightens awareness' of patient-pay potential
By Liz Beaulieu, Editor
Updated Fri January 31, 2014
YARMOUTH, Maine - What does Brightree's acquisition of Strategic AR mean for other patient-pay companies in the HME industry?
Patientco and A/R Allegiance also stand to benefit from the deal, they say.
“On a macro level, it's validation that what we're doing is valuable and necessary,” said Kurt Lovell, COO of Patientco. “Nothing proves that better than when the mother ship of software vendors buys you or one of your competitors.”
Partnerships or agreements among software companies and patient pay companies have been fairly common. A/R Allegiance and MedBill announced a partnership in September; Patientco and Jaysec announced a partnership in October. But Brightree and Strategic AR are the first to up the ante with an acquisition.
More tangibly, Patientco and A/R Allegiance expect to see a bump in business as a result of the deal.
“It heightens awareness among providers,” said Keith Lilek, CEO of A/R Allegiance. “If more and more of the responsibility of paying for health care is placed on the patients, providers need to wrap a process around going after those patients. That problem isn't going to go away.”
Providers aren't the only ones taking notice of the deal, Patientco and A/R Allegiance say.
“It's a wake up call for some of the other software vendors,” Lovell said. “They'll think, 'Wait a minute, we need to make sure we're paying attention to this, too.' They're not ready to concede to Brightree.”
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