Revenue cycle · Patient billing & payments
PatientPay
PatientPay is a digital patient billing and payments platform for medical groups and RCM partners, covering statements, online payment, and payment plans.
Strong fit
- Medical groups and billing partners that need online patient billing, statements, and payment plans without a large patient payment suite
- Teams that will track how much patients pay and what statements cost after switching
- Buyers evaluating mid-sized patient billing platforms, including against large systems like Cedar
Weak fit
- Health systems moving to a large patient estimate and CRM suite from day one
- Buyers who only need claim editing with no patient communications
- Groups unwilling to move away from paper statements
Bottom line
PatientPay is worth using for mid-sized medical groups whose patient payment problems come from statements, digital payments, and payment plans. It suits groups ready for the billing and practice management integration work that goes with a new patient billing system.
Score breakdown
Weights: Outcomes 35% · Product 30% · Implementation 20% · Pricing clarity 15%.
PatientPay is an online patient billing and payments platform for medical groups and billing partners. It covers statements, online payment, payment plans, and related work. Results look strongest when paper statement volume drops and patient payments rise after patients sign up. Setup means billing work and connecting to the practice management system.
Among the billing tools we review, PatientPay scores just below Collectly for patient payments, and its depth is close to Collectly on automated patient billing. It is narrower than Phreesia when intake and payments are both needed, and different from Aptarro, which focuses on claim edits. Collectly suits broader automated patient billing, Phreesia suits intake and payments together, and Aptarro suits groups losing money on claim edits instead of patient collections.
Competitor landscape
| Vendor | Overall | Ease of implementation |
|---|---|---|
| Cedar | 7.9 | 7.4 |
| PayZen | 7.6 | 7.5 |
| Inbox Health | 7.4 | 7.1 |
| Collectly | 7.4 | 7.2 |
| PatientPay | 7.0 | 7.0 |
| Rivia Health | 6.5 | 6.4 |
Pricing
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Model | Custom software for online patient billing, statements, and payments, often priced by statement or payment volume. |
| What usually drives cost | Statement volume, payment volume, modules, and whether you buy through a billing partner or directly. |
| What to ask before you buy | Monthly cost at your statement volume, payment processing fees, and what setup includes. |
| Published pricing | Fees are quoted for each customer and are not listed on the website. |
Prerequisites for purchase
| Need | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| What you need to get PatientPay to function | |
| A billing owner who can change claim checks and billing steps | Without a billing owner, the software tends to go unused. |
| Starting numbers for clean claims, denials, or patient payments | Without a starting number, later gains in patient payments cannot be measured. |
| A way to connect to your practice system or EHR, and test claims ready | Claim checks without an owner create more rework for the billing team. |
| A staffing plan for work queues after launch | Work queues without an owner tend to turn into write-offs. |
| Your payer mix and top denial or statement reasons written down | Generic rules miss the denial and statement reasons that cost this group the most. |
| What will maximize your value | |
| Track clean claims or patient payments every week for 90 days | A product tour does not show whether clean claims or patient payments improved. |
| Fix the top denial or statement reasons in the first month | Trying to fix every denial or statement reason at once delays cash recovery. |
| Stop duplicate manual workarounds after a week of running both | Running paper statements alongside the new system cancels the gain from digital billing. |
| Review old work queue items in a regular team meeting | Unpaid balances that quietly age hide problems in the new queues. |
| Send finance leaders a monthly cash and denial summary | Cash and denial problems that stay off the monthly summary surprise finance leaders later. |
| Deal-breakers | |
| No one will own claim checks or billing queues. | |
| You will not do the system connection work the product needs. | |
| You expect a billing tool to replace your EHR. | |
| Leaders will not measure cash or denial results. | |
| Compliance blocks the way you need to contact patients. | |
Value creation time frame
| # | Stage | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plan and measure the starting point | 2-4 weeks to set measures, interfaces, and which rules and statements are covered. |
| 2 | Set up | 4-10 weeks for rules, templates, and practice system links, then test claims. |
| 3 | Pilot | 2-6 weeks with one entity or group of payers. |
| 4 | Improve | Ongoing: adjust rules and clear the queue. |
Leadership
Methodology
| Weight | Factor | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 35% | Customer outcomes | Whether buyers get measurable operational or clinical-workflow results after go-live |
| 30% | Product | Capability depth, reliability, and fit for the job the category buys |
| 20% | Implementation | How hard it is to stand up, integrate, train, and stabilize |
| 15% | Pricing clarity | Whether a buyer can model total cost without a mystery quote |
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Highly recommend | Strong outcomes and product with manageable caveats |
| Recommend | Solid fit for the right buyer; know the tradeoffs |
| Conditional | Only with a specific use case or heavy caveats |
| Not recommended | Avoid for most buyers in this category |
Read our full methodology for how we weight scores and assign recommend labels.