Healthcare Providers Can Get Paid More Often, More Quickly Using New Sage Patient Payments Product

MCLEAN, VA–(Marketwire – October 20, 2010) – Patient payments are an increasing and critical part of the overall revenue stream for today’s healthcare providers. With approximately 50% of patient payments being written off as bad debt; point-of-care payments solutions help ensure payment is both received and approved. Sage Payment Solutions, the payments division for Sage North America, today announced the launch of Sage Patient Payments, a secure payment solution that enables collections from patients at the point of care, regardless of the patient’s third-party payer.

“With co-pays, deductibles, and the balance not covered by the patient’s insurance provider, healthcare payments have been historically challenging for patients to figure out,” said Greg Hammermaster, president of Sage Payment Solutions. “This confusion results in doctors’ offices focusing more on billing, payment, and collections, which drives up their costs. Sage Patient Payments streamlines the payment process facilitating accurate and timely payment to the doctors’ office while mitigating the patients’ confusion.”

By the end of this year, about 35% of a provider’s total revenue will derive directly from patient payments, according to the McKinsey & Co. report, “Overhauling the US Health Care Payment System.” Sage Patient Payments provides everything needed to handle patient payments at the point of care. The product’s calculator instantly determines the estimated service charges for a patient, taking into consideration relevant health plan discount arrangements.

Powered by mPay Gateway, a leading developer of Payment Card Industry (PCI) certified financial technology products and services for the healthcare industry, Sage Patient Payments provides patients with a simpler, easier-to-understand billing process. Physicians can dramatically reduce their receivables, bad debt, and patient statement costs in three easy steps.

After reviewing a summary of charges with a patient, healthcare providers can swipe the patient’s credit or debit card and obtain the patient’s commitment to pay up to that amount. These steps allow healthcare providers to directly collect the exact amount owed at a later date, after the patient’s insurance company or other third-party payer determines what the patient owes. The patient is never charged more than the estimate, and the provider never needs to send another bill.

Other features of Sage Patient Payments tailored to the unique healthcare environment include: payment plans, health benefit plan eligibility lookup, and a check and cash log to track all patient payments.

In addition to Sage Patient Payments, Sage offers numerous products and services used by the healthcare industry, including Sage Intergy for practice management, Sage Intergy EHR for electronic health records, and Sage Transaction Services for electronic data interchange (EDI). Approximately 80,000 physicians and thousands of ambulatory care practices throughout North America use Sage software and services to better manage their practices and improve profitability.

For more information on Sage Patient Payments or other products and services from Sage Payment Solutions, please visit www.sagepayments.com or call 800-261-0240.

About Sage Payment Solutions
Sage Payment Solutions, the payments division for Sage North America, has been providing businesses and organizations with electronic payment systems for more than 20 years. The company makes electronic payment processing easy for more than 155,000 merchants, allowing them to accept multiple forms of payment, including credit and debit cards, electronic checks, Check21, gift and loyalty cards, and automatic recurring payment. Sage Payment Solutions provides a wide range of secure standalone and integrated payment processing solutions. Sage Exchange, its PA-DSS certified payments platform, integrates with many Sage software products to maximize the value of customers’ business systems with automatically updated credit and debit card transaction information. Future Sage Exchange releases will offer additional integrated payment capabilities, including advanced point-of-sale (POS) device integration, payment origination solutions, and cash management applications. For more information about Sage Payment Solutions, please call 800-261-0240, or visit www.sagepayments.com.

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. Sage North America employs 4,000 people and supports 3.1 million small and midsized business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 13,100 people and supports 6.2 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the website at www.sagenorthamerica.com.