Hospitals signing on to Commerce Bank’s health-care financing program
ST. LOUIS — Commerce Bank says it has reached $500 million in committed credit lines for Health Services Financing, a program that provides patients with a 0 percent or low-interest line of credit for paying for health care.
More than 200 hospitals have signed on to make the program available to their patients.
Health Services Financing allows patients to make monthly payments over time. This helps ease the burden of rising deductibles and out of pocket expenses, as well as the financial strain on health systems.
“Health-care providers are realizing they need a strong, reputable partner that understands their challenges. Patient satisfaction is paramount, but so is the provider’s staff and workflow,” said Mark Huebner, director of HSF at Commerce Bank. “HSF is designed with those challenges in mind and is backed by a 150-year-old financial institution.”
The credit line is directly administered by Commerce Bank. The bank says it is fast and easy for health-care providers to enroll patients and requires no paperwork, credit check, manual cash posting or other qualifying steps. The fully automated solution can work with any billing system, such as EPIC, McKesson, Cerner and others. Commerce provides customer service and several options for repayment through a service line dedicated to customers.
“We spent many years and many millions of dollars designing our program to be unique within the industry with the help of several large health systems,” said Huebner. “We’re thrilled to see HSF not only adding value, but also giving providers a competitive advantage.”
Hospital Sisters Health System was looking for a solution that would fit their brand and organization while enhancing patient satisfaction.
“We needed a banking partner we could trust who understands the culture of our faith-based health system,” said Monica Malin, treasury manager for Hospital Sisters Health System.
The 15-hospital health system located in Illinois and Wisconsin challenged Commerce to design a program that would work for multiple locations and billing systems as well as internal workflows and patients. “Commerce’s HSF provided the flexibility we needed. We are receiving amazing feedback from patients who appreciate the relief and generosity.”
– The Illinois Business Journal
