Tag: Machine Learning

Developing with Empathy: TrueAccord’s Mission-Driven Approach

By on December 21st, 2022 in Customer Experience, Industry Insights, Machine Learning, Product and Technology, User Experience
Developing with Empathy

When most people think of debt collection, the word “empathy” rarely comes to mind. As a mission-driven company, we at TrueAccord, are trying to change that. We know life happens and financial anxiety has become more common than ever—especially when it comes to dealing with debt. By understanding and anticipating a customer’s needs, TrueAccord takes an empathetic approach which enables us to tailor our message and help the consumer’s journey back to financial health. With this in mind, it’s crucial for us to understand how a consumer might feel when they fall into debt.

Understanding and Engaging with the Customer

Life happens and so do delinquencies. So far, most fintechs have been good at focusing on customer experience by investing in user research and making sure that their products resonate with their target audience. However, a customer’s situation can change at the drop of a hat and with it their financial status, priorities, and motivations. When a customer, whom you thought you knew well, has an account that goes delinquent, they essentially become a stranger. Now a whole new approach is required in order to engage with this consumer. 

In order to adopt the right approach to engage a delinquent account, the first thing we have to figure out is who the customer is. What are their needs? What problems do they have? Do they have special circumstances? Not only is every customer different, but every interaction you may have with that customer could be different depending on what life situation they find themselves in. So it is very important to have a broad communication strategy and be ready to meet the customer when and where they are ready to engage. This means don’t limit communication channels and have options that consumers can explore, evaluate, and select on their own time.

Leveraging Digital-First Channels

Most consumers prefer using digital channels over talking on the phone with research showing 94% of unidentified calls going unanswered. Digital channels allow people to choose when to respond without being put on the spot. 

But starting a digital-first approach is not easy—it’s not just about sending emails or SMS messages to consumers. At TrueAccord we try to find the right communication channel to use for a specific consumer. We might start with a combination of email and SMS but once we get more engagement with one or the other, we’ll primarily focus on using the channel the customer engaged in. 

We make sure that they’re aware of their debt and their options from obtaining more information, disputing, or evaluating payment plans all through a portal where the consumer is in control.. 

For consumers who do choose to set up a payment plan, we work to make sure that they have everything they need to be successful in their plan – whether that means changing the plan, the payment date, or amount, we monitor and provide content so that the consumer can effectively stay in control of their plan through successful completion – putting the consumer back in control of their own financial health while at the same time recovering for the creditor.

Using Data for a Personalized, Empathetic Experience

To truly engage consumers a successful digital strategy should go beyond a simple campaign that pushes out emails to all of your consumers at the same time every week or every other week with a generic message. Not only do you have to overcome the inboxing challenge to avoid spam filters, you need to deliver the communication at the optimal time for the consumer to open the message. And you have to have the right message, a personalized message that causes the consumer to act – to communicate back to you their intentions related to the account (dispute, full payment, payment plan, hardship, etc.). 

But how do you personalize? 

This is where it’s vital to leverage an understanding of your consumers. This can be done with experimentation in A/B testing consumer research, and machine learning. A/B testing and consumer research help identify what resonates with consumers and what does not. Machine learning allows personalization at scale. At TrueAccord, we rely on machine learning to continuously improve our models. We can see what digital channels, timing, and messaging each individual consumer responds best to and tailor those specific preferences to the individual journey for each consumer. We also make sure that compliance is included from the start as it needs to be regulated throughout. 

For example, the best payment option is different for everyone. We provide a lot of flexibility, but we also know that showing them that flexibility up front, something that they can actually afford, will engage the customer to take the next step. Depending on the size and the age of the debt, we may show a couple of payment plans that we believe will be the most attractive to that customer along with the option to build their own payment plan. Once a customer sets up their payment plan, we send reminders when payment is due. We also have models that predict if a consumer is likely to break their payment plan based on past behavior and offer options to help keep them on track, like pushing the payment if they’re unable to pay on that date (because we understand that life happens, just like delinquencies). And as they make their payments, we celebrate their progress with them and acknowledge that they are making an effort to improve their financial situation!

The End-Product:

TrueAccord has worked with over 20 million consumers and sends over one million communications per day. For each of those communications, we’re making decisions on what to send, how to send it, and when to send it all in accordance with the legal and regulatory compliance obligations. We then use that data to continuously optimize and improve our communication method for each consumer. We’ve learned that if you’re building for the downtimes, it’s critical to realize that debt collection is a part of a consumer financial service. While our creditors are our clients, if we do what is right for the consumer (our clients’ customers), they are more likely to pay back to those creditors. A better consumer experience leads to better outcomes for all. 

By incorporating an empathetic approach to debt collections, TrueAccord is able to collect more money while helping consumers with their financial situation.

Want to learn more about how your business can integrate more empathy into your collections communications? Schedule a consultation today!

TrueAccord Digitally Serves 20 Million Consumers on Path to Financial Health

By on July 12th, 2022 in Company News, Customer Experience, Machine Learning, Product and Technology

With more than 20 million consumer accounts serviced through intelligent, digital-first collections products, results show better repayment and happier customers than “call to collect” agencies

LENEXA, Kan., July 12, 2022 — TrueAccord Corp, a debt collection company using machine learning-powered digital recovery solutions, today announced that it has served more than 20 million customers in debt with a digital-first experience. TrueAccord’s customer-centric approach and commitment to creating a positive consumer experience is reflected in its 4.7 Google customer satisfaction rating, customer feedback, and an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.

TrueAccord’s collection solutions harness machine learning and digital-first communications to deliver a personalized, consumer-friendly experience for those in debt. As is the nature of machine learning, the system dynamically analyzes and refines the approach used for each customer based on their interactions combined with years of previous engagement data in order to deliver the most effective communication treatment. The patented system, HeartBeat, which is now 20 million customer engagement interactions strong since its 2013 inception, continues to optimize with each new customer interaction.

“Machine learning is only as good as its data sources, and with more than 20 million accounts’ worth of engagement data that informs the HeartBeat system, we’re confident that the experiences being delivered are as streamlined and as aligned to consumer preferences as possible,” said Mark Ravanesi, CEO of TrueAccord Corp. “As a mission-driven company, we prioritize creating better experiences for consumers in debt, and based on our high customer satisfaction and repayment rates, it looks like we’re making significant progress.”

Powered by TrueAccord’s industry-leading tech stack, the product suite includes Retain, a client-branded early-stage consumer engagement platform for managing pre-charge off debt, and Recover, a full-service debt collection solution. Key benefits of both products include a simple, intuitive and effortless-to-use digital platform leading to great user experience, constant A/B testing and optimization to reduce friction and boost conversion rate, infinite scalability, and second-to-none channel deliverability. 

While holding customer experience as a priority, TrueAccord products continue to prove more effective than competitors, as evidenced by client case studies showing 25-35% better performance on accounts using Recover when compared to those placed with traditional agencies, and recovering $17 million in delinquent bills with a 44% paid in full rate using Retain.

To learn more about TrueAccord and its digital-first recovery solutions, visit www.TrueAccord.com and follow on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About TrueAccord

TrueAccord is the intelligent, digital-first collection and recovery company that leaders across industries trust to drive breakthrough results while delivering a superior consumer experience. TrueAccord pioneered the industry’s only adaptive intelligence: a patented machine learning engine, powered by engagement data from over 20 million consumer journeys, that dynamically personalizes every facet of the consumer experience – from channel to message to plan type and more – in real-time. Combined with code-based compliance and a self-serve digital experience, TrueAccord delivers liquidation and recovery rates 50-80% higher than industry benchmarks. The TrueAccord product suite includes Retain, an early-stage recovery solution, and Recover, a full-service debt collection platform.

How Making the Switch to Digital-First Helped Recover $17M with TrueAccord’s Retain Platform

By on June 6th, 2022 in Industry Insights
How Making the Switch to Digital-First Helped Recover $17M with TrueAccord's Retain

When COVID hit in 2020, one Fortune 500 company needed to find an effective way to communicate and collect from the rising overdue accounts, with many of their customers falling into financial hardships. While the company had previously relied on old-school communication tactics like direct mail and an in-house call center to reach customers who had delinquent accounts, they knew a better solution was needed. 

The company had already observed firsthand a rise in customers’ preference for digital communications between mobile apps and online bill pay options, making it clear that this was the best route to go. Rather than build from scratch in-house—which would’ve been costly and time-consuming—the company evaluated third-party options before choosing TrueAccord and implementing Retain, the client-labeled early-stage collections solution. 

Once implemented and customized to fit the company’s needs, TrueAccord helped them collect over 63,000 payments to recover over $17 million. 

Retain’s digital outreach strategy made a significant impact on customer engagement and resolution beyond just payments with improvements across their paid in full rate, overall collections rate, average amount collected daily, and more. And with the help of HeartBeat, TrueAccord’s powerful machine learning decision engine, they were able to observe behavior data and optimize digital touch points and engagement in real-time. In just a few weeks, this digital collections approach caused a major transformation that only continued to improve. 

Discover all the astounding results in our full Case Study and learn more about how Retain helped the company implement the successful solution. 

Want to see how much more your company could recover with Retain? Request a demo! 

TrueAccord Announces Results Confirming Effectiveness of Digital-First Retain Product for Early-Stage Delinquencies

By on January 25th, 2022 in Company News, Machine Learning, Product and Technology

With more than 1 million consumer accounts now managed through the intelligent, client-branded product, results show 40% more effective than leading “call and collect” vendors

LENEXA, Kan., Jan. 25, 2022 — TrueAccord Corporation, a debt collection company offering machine learning-powered digital recovery solutions, today announced results following the September 2021 rollout of Retain, the client-branded product that addresses early-stage recovery challenges for organizations with customers with delinquent accounts. TrueAccord Retain is now being used by creditors to manage more than 1 million consumer accounts and has shown to be 40 percent more effective at repayment than traditional “call and collect” debt collection vendors. 

TrueAccord Retain, which harnesses digital technology and machine learning to deliver a personalized, effective early-stage recovery strategy, significantly outperformed three traditional “call and collect” agencies across several of an anonymous client’s portfolios. Relative to the best-performing “call and collect” vendor for each product portfolio, TrueAccord Retain drove a 24 percent improvement in roll rate, a 28 percent improvement in early-stage gross flow through rate and a 40 percent improvement in late-stage gross flow through rate*.  

“With more than 1 million consumer accounts now being managed through Retain, we’re able to see the robust results of the product on improving early-stage delinquencies for our clients,” said Mark Ravanesi, CEO of TrueAccord Corp. “The results of our client’s evaluation were unambiguous: Retain’s machine learning-powered, digital-first approach resonated with consumers and drove significant growth for the early-stage recovery business. With a lingering worker shortage, especially in the call center space, we expect these performance numbers to continue to grow as more consumers are brought into the Retain ecosystem in 2022.”

Powered by TrueAccord’s industry-leading tech stack, key benefits of Retain include a simple, intuitive and effortless-to-use digital platform leading to great user experience, constant A/B testing and optimization to reduce friction and boost conversion rate, infinite scalability, and second-to-none channel deliverability. Retain implements e-commerce-based innovations like the focus on digital experience and outreach, machine learning-based personalization, and deliverability at massive scale for early-stage use. 

To learn more about TrueAccord and its digital-first recovery solutions, visit www.TrueAccord.com and follow @TrueAccord on Twitter and LinkedIn.

*This data comes from an anonymous client’s evaluation of performance of different delinquency  approaches  side-by-side. The client randomly assigned credit and retail card accounts to TrueAccord Retain and the other vendors. Key success metrics included roll rate, or the percentage of dollars that became progressively delinquent, and gross flow through rate, or the percentage of dollars that flowed from one delinquency category across multiple subsequent categories.

About TrueAccord

TrueAccord is the intelligent, digital-first collection and recovery company that leaders across industries trust to drive breakthrough results while delivering a superior consumer experience. TrueAccord pioneered the industry’s only adaptive intelligence: a patented machine learning engine, powered by engagement data from over 16 million consumer journeys, that dynamically personalizes every facet of the consumer experience – from channel to message to plan type and more – in real-time. Combined with code-based compliance and a self-serve digital experience, TrueAccord delivers liquidation and recovery rates 50-80% higher than industry benchmarks. The TrueAccord product suite includes Retain, an early-stage recovery solution, and Recover, a full-service debt collection platform.

How TrueAccord Embraces Machine Learning to Create Positive Consumer Experiences in Debt Collections

By on December 23rd, 2021 in Industry Insights, Machine Learning, Product and Technology
TrueAccord Blog

By Laura Marino

TrueAccord’s Chief Product Officer, Laura Marino, was recently featured in the New Standard in Debt Collection panel as part of the Beyond Digital: The Next Era in Collections summit. As a civil engineer turned product management executive, Laura has a unique viewpoint on the evolution of machine learning in software across a variety of industries. In this blog post, Laura shares her perspective on machine learning at TrueAccord and in collections, in general.

At TrueAccord, we know that consumers prefer digital channels and self-service. We also know that just providing the digital channels is not enough. To truly engage with consumers we need to help them throughout the journey. This is where machine learning comes in.

What is machine learning?

Machine learning is an application of artificial intelligence (AI) that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. In the context of collections, and specifically in the context of our consumer-centric approach to collections, machine learning is a wonderful tool to personalize the experience for each consumer, effectively engage with each of them, and ultimately help resolve their debt.

There has been so much hype around machine learning, but often companies that claim to do ML are really using fixed rules or heuristics (if a consumer does X, then do Y) without including any of the automatic learning and improvement. Or they may be using ML for a very specific, very limited scope – like automating some consumer support responses. The reason that leveraging ML is so difficult for something as complex as collections and recovery is that it requires a lot of expertise in data science and behavioral science, it requires a lot of user research, and it requires a lot of data.  This is not something that a company can decide to start doing overnight as an add-on.

How does TrueAccord apply machine learning to debt collection?

TrueAccord is leveraging machine learning and behavioral science throughout the entire journey, from initial engagement all the way to resolution. We were built specifically around the hypothesis that focusing on machine learning-driven, digital-first experiences was the way to transform debt collections. We have been doing this since 2013, and we have orders of magnitude more data than anyone else. Just to give you an idea: we send millions of emails per day, and hundreds of thousands of text messages per week and our ML engine learns from every open, every click, every action on our website, and every interaction with our call center agents. Because of all of this, we have something that is very hard for anyone to imitate.

Unlike traditional collections, we do not use demographic data like age, zip code, or creditworthiness to personalize the experience. Instead, we use engagement data about how the consumer responds at every step in the process.  

We have handled debts for over 24 million consumers and we have collected data about each individual interaction with those consumers. That wealth of data, combined with our ongoing user research is behind the ability of Heartbeat (our fully automated and reactive decision engine) to personalize the experience for each consumer.  We’ve seen this data-driven machine learning customer-centric approach lead to increased customer satisfaction, better repayment rates, and lower complaint rates.

Machine learning is used to personalize and optimize every step of the customer journey. The first thing we need to do is to effectively engage with the consumer.  For that we have several models: 

  • Cadence optimizer: determines the right cadence to communicate with each consumer about their debt. Specifically, it determines which day to send the next communication. We don’t have a fixed rule that says “send an email every x days.” Our decision engine decides it dynamically based on the type of debt, the consumer behavior, and where they are in the process. 
  • Send time optimizer: determines when during that day, communication should go out. A working mother who is busy with her kids in the morning and in the evening is more likely to check her messages in the middle of the day during her lunch break. A construction worker has a very early start to their day, may prefer to check messages at the end of the day.  We want our consumers to receive our communications during their preferred times so that they are at the top of their inbox and not buried under 50 other emails. Reaching people at the right time of day has a big impact. Due to our send time optimizer, we saw a 23% increase in liquidation for certain types of debts. 
  • Email content rater: we also want to make sure that the tone of our communication is one that will best resonate with a specific consumer. For each piece of content we send out, our content team has created multiple versions with different voices, ranging from very empathetic to more ‘to the point’ because different people respond to different styles. Heartbeat chooses which one to send based on what it has learned from the behavior of each consumer. 

After engaging the consumer with the right cadence, timing, and content we want to make sure that they commit to a payment plan and stick to it until their debt is resolved. For that, we have machine learning models that determine the best combination of discount and length of payment plans to offer to each consumer. The options that the consumer sees when they get to the payment plan page are tailored to them based on what Heartbeat believes will work best. The consumers can build their own plan but, if we can proactively offer options that work, we make it easier.

We also have a ‘payment plan breakage model’ that helps us identify consumers who are at risk of not making a payment so that we can proactively reach out to them and give them options. With this we were able to increase the resolution rate among customers at risk by 35%.

What do customers think about TrueAccord’s model?

We have a lot of very positive feedback from our consumers which I attribute very much to our machine learning capabilities. It is one of the things that I think is so exciting for everybody who works at TrueAccord. We consistently get messages saying, “Thank you for making it so easy. Thank you for allowing me to do it via digital channels without having to talk to anybody.” And then when people call with questions, our call center knows that they’re there to help. People definitely respond very positively to the approach we’re taking to collections.

This content originally appeared as part of the Beyond Digital: The Next Era in Collections summit. Watch the entire summit here. 

Beyond Digital: The Next Era in Collections

By on November 10th, 2021 in Industry Insights, Webinars
TrueAccord Blog

In 2013, TrueAccord was founded with the hypothesis that AI driven digital collection was the way to transform the industry. Eight years later, we are still confident in the transformational nature of our hypothesis but are still surprised how few other companies in our industry have fully embraced digital-first debt collection.

The digital revolution has been ongoing for some time now. The word “digital” itself has evolved from a high-tech term that few understood to one that is now regularly accepted as part of our everyday lives – both personally and professionally. As the digital world continues to accelerate the way in which we do everything – from paying for things to driving cars to  debt collection – it’s not enough anymore to just invest in digital. Focused strategies and understandings of more complex technologies are mandatory to getting the most out of what the digital economy has to offer.

At TrueAccord, to create powerful moments that actually help consumers, not only pay off debt, but become more financially stable and confident, we need to think bigger by putting them first. In honor of the launch of our newest product, Retain, TrueAccord hosted the Beyond Digital: The Next Era in Collections summit, which is now available in its entirety on-demand. Stay tuned for more on each of the individual sessions.

Here’s the lineup from the Beyond Digital summit:

Welcome Keynote

Ohad Samet, Co-founder & CEO, One True Holding Company

Understanding Consumers in Debt in 2021 (and Beyond)

Mark Ravanesi, CEO, TrueAccord

Jacob Kong, Chief Product Officer, Experian

Jan Hansson, VP, Debt Collection, Klarna

What Debt Collection Leaders Can learn From the Masters of E-Commerce

Naama Bloom, CMO, TrueAccord

Sunil Kaki, EVP, Beachbody & OpenFit

The New Standard of Excellence in Debt Collection: Creating World-Class Consumer Experiences Via Machine Learning

Lauran Marino, Chief Product Officer, TrueAccord

Sheila Monroe, Chief Growth Officer, TrueAccord

TrueAccord Launches Retain, a Digital-First Solution for Early-Stage Collections

By on September 16th, 2021 in Company News, Product and Technology

The intelligent, client-branded product for delinquent accounts uses a patented, machine learning-driven decision engine to engage customers and boost recovery rates

Lenexa, KS – Sept. 16, 2021 – TrueAccord Corporation, which offers  intelligent digital recovery and communication products and services, today launched Retain, a new, client-branded product that addresses early-stage collection challenges for lenders and other organizations with customers with past-due delinquent accounts. Using the company’s patented, machine learning-based and self-optimizing decision engine, Retain uses engagement data from individual interactions to optimize the consumer experience while increasing recovery for clients. The client-branded product enables clients to improve collections, maintain customer relationships, and offer solutions to their customers that improve financial fitness. 

Powered by TrueAccord’s industry-leading tech stack, key benefits of Retain include a simple, intuitive and effortless-to-use digital platform leading to great user experience, constant A/B testing and optimization to reduce friction and boost conversion rate, infinite scalability, and second-to-none channel deliverability. Retain implements ecommerce-based innovations like the focus on digital experience and outreach, machine learning-based personalization, and deliverability at massive scale for early-stage use. 

“​​After seeing success with our late-stage collection solution, Recover, we identified an opportunity to apply the same customer-centric approach to early-stage collections. Our data and machine learning-driven engine proved unmatched for late-stage recoveries. Clients asked us to expand our product suite to address early-stage delinquency while keeping their customers in their brand ecosystem, and we were happy to oblige,” said Mark Ravanesi, CEO of TrueAccord Corp. 

Retain prioritizes customer engagement and preference, which is critical to preserve the  lender-borrower relationship, with custom communications, timing and channels and a self-serve payment platform that empowers customers to easily manage their accounts. Unlike traditional call-to-collect early-stage collections, which require increased outbound call center volumes, Retain engages users more effectively and efficiently with a digital-first approach and can reduce costs by transforming call centers into productive inbound operations.

“Retain takes all the innovative customer engagement processes we’ve built and adds a brand-focused retention toolkit for our clients to easily plug and play to engage with their delinquent customers,” added Ohad Samet, co-founder and CEO of One True Holding Company, TrueAccord’s parent company. “Retain adds to our product and service offerings designed to improve the experience for consumers in debt and actually help them find a path toward a better financial future.” 

For more product information or to request a demo, please visit the product page at www.trueaccord.com. 

About TrueAccord

TrueAccord is the intelligent, digital-first collection and recovery company that leaders across industries trust to drive breakthrough results while delivering a superior consumer experience. TrueAccord pioneered the industry’s only adaptive intelligence: a patented machine learning engine, powered by engagement data from over 16 million consumer journeys, that dynamically personalizes every facet of the consumer experience – from channel to message to plan type and more – in real-time. Combined with code-based compliance and a self-serve digital experience, TrueAccord delivers liquidation and recovery rates 50-80% higher than industry benchmarks. The TrueAccord product suite includes Retain, an early-stage collection solution, and Recover, a full-service post-charge off recovery platform. 

About One True Holding Company

One True Holding Company is a technology company providing business- and consumer-facing solutions in the consumer debt space. Subsidiaries include TrueAccord, which offers machine learning-based, digital- and mobile-first servicing for debt in collections and recoveries, and True Life Solutions, which offers a SaaS platform that consumers can use to contact collectors and creditors digitally.

Building a Digital-First, Third-Party Collections Solution with Snap Finance

By on August 13th, 2021 in Industry Insights, Machine Learning, Product and Technology

In 2019, Todd Johnsen, Snap Finance’s Senior Manager of Collections Vendors, was charged with doing something that had never been done at Snap before: developing a third-party collections program. According to Johnsen, “At that time, the only recovery program for charge-off accounts was a call-and-collect settlement at tax season. I knew we could do better, but we’d have to start from scratch.” Johnsen also found a large amount of backlog accounts that had never been worked by a collections agency, as well as the need for a forward flow third-party recovery program.

Johnsen and team surveyed their options: they looked at both traditional agencies (predominantly making outbound calls) and digital-first collections solution providers, like TrueAccord. Johnsen was particularly interested in how digital-first providers like TrueAccord used machine learning to optimize their relationships with consumers via digital channels like email, SMS, and push notifications. 

“My thought process was — we work with subprime consumers who may have bad associations with debt collection,” said Johnsen. “This audience may have already had experiences with incessant collection phone calls, and they are used to avoiding them. I wanted to find an agency that was doing things differently. I knew that TrueAccord was using technology and digital channels in a way that other providers weren’t.”

While Johnsen was curious about working with a digital-first agency like TrueAccord, he wasn’t ready to go all-in immediately. The Snap Finance team decided to engage both a traditional agency and TrueAccord and compare the results. In evaluating the competing partners, key considerations included liquidation rate performance, security and compliance, and optimization efficiency. The result? TrueAccord delivered better results across all measured parameters.

“The reality of the results really knocked me out,” said Johnsen. “What we saw was almost 25-35% better performance on the accounts that we placed with TrueAccord, compared to the accounts we placed with traditional agencies. It was a real eye-opener. In fact, TrueAccord is number one in every tier I have them in. We’ve seen nothing but huge benefits as a result of that individual, digital-first interaction that TrueAccord tailors to each consumer.”

To learn more about TrueAccord’s work with Snap Finance, read the full case study.

Beyond Coding: Using AI to Improve the Healthcare Revenue Cycle

By on July 8th, 2021 in Industry Insights, Machine Learning
TrueAccord Blog

Generally, when talking about artificial intelligence (AI) in regards to medical collections, we hear about how it has automated the once-painstaking process of medical coding for billing. But why stop there? With all of its capabilities, AI has much more impressive and patient-facing applications when used to improve customer experience, especially in the healthcare industry which is increasingly digital-first and self-serve. In this post, we’ll explore how AI and machine learning can supercharge the healthcare revenue cycle by catering to consumer preferences, turning billing and collections into a seamless, efficient experience for both patients and providers.

But first: why is it necessary—and even urgent—to improve healthcare revenue management? The answer is patient expectations. Patients now expect the same type of personalized, easy-to-use experience they’ve grown accustomed to receiving from other industries, including banking, airline and retail industries. Patients are now “digital-first” and look for an end-to-end experience that allows them to handle medical-related issues on their own, often from their mobile devices. Patients can already schedule appointments, request prescription refills, receive test results, and even contact their healthcare provider directly through digital platforms. The application of digitization through AI and machine learning to other touchpoints in the patient journey, all the way through billing and collections, can improve customer experience and thereby their overall interactions and relationships with their healthcare providers.

First, digitization powered by AI and machine learning can replace manual and paper processes to speed up the recovery timeline. A 2020 report by InstaMed, a J.P. Morgan company, found that patient collections take more than a month for 63% of healthcare providers. This figure isn’t surprising when 81% of providers still leverage paper and manual processes for collections, while 75% of consumers want to receive eStatements for medical bills. The traditional method of collections does not align with consumer preferences, with more than half (54%) of consumers surveyed saying they prefer electronic communications (emails, text messages, in-app messages and live chats) for medical bills. And a majority of consumers (65%) preferred paying those medical bills digitally as well – whether online through their doctor’s or health plan’s website, their bank’s bill-pay portal or mobile apps – instead of manually. Using AI and machine learning to match the consumer’s communication and payment preferences can drastically improve the time needed to engage and collect from patients.

Second, AI-powered systems can personalize the billing and collections process and offer intuitive payment solutions for patients to achieve the best possible recovery rates. According to the InstaMed report, collecting patient financial responsibility in a timely manner was especially challenging for large patient balances, with 49% of surveyed providers reporting that they cannot collect bills of more than $400 in 30 days. Especially with multiple billers on different payment cycles, it can be difficult for a patient to set up a payment plan with terms they can successfully meet. AI can improve this experience by identifying the most efficient time, place and manner to communicate with a patient about their financial responsibility and go a step further in presenting personalized, affordable payment options. 

Third, AI can be used to interface directly with clients where they are and minimize the need for waiting on hold for the next available representative, creating a more seamless, humane process and a better customer experience. AI-enabled chatbots can answer basic questions, while automation can help provide information on why claims were denied and other status updates. Empathetic customer service is important in the healthcare industry and customized customer self-service can reduce frustration for the patient and the number of service agents needed for the provider.

At TrueAccord, we use AI and machine learning to build digital debt collection solutions for billers that put customers first. By implementing behavioral analytics to predict consumer communication preferences and machine learning to create smart, intuitive processes that increase likelihood of patient repayment, TrueAccord products stay a step ahead to ensure a successful revenue cycle where both patients and providers win. To safeguard personal patient information, TrueAccord’s policies and procedures are designed to comply with all HIPAA-related requirements (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), including documenting the use of protected health information (PHI) and the physical, technical, and administrative safeguards implemented to protect PHI. Learn more about how we use AI and machine learning to provide a personalized collections experience at scale here.