Revenue Cycle Acceleration for Busy Healthcare Practices

Maximizing patient collections at the point-of-service is a process problem, not a patient problem — and the right digital tools solve it automatically. Start by clearly determining patient responsibility and giving patients a clear, simple way to pay at check-in — before the billing window closes.

After all, your top opportunity to collect any payments from patients closes fast. Industry data shows the probability of collecting a balance drops to just 30% once a patient walks out the door. Practices that shift their point-of-service collections approach consistently outperform those relying on post-visit billing.

1. Start With Accurate Eligibility

Practices can't collect the right amount if they don't know what's owed. Eliminate the guesswork that leads to undercollection and claim rejections with gold-standard eligibility verification.

Comprehensive EyeCare Partners (CompEye), a physician-led organization with over 100 providers across nearly 50 locations, identified eligibility verification as one of their biggest revenue challenges before partnering with Clearwave. As Chad Jackson, Regional VP of CompEye and Administrator at Texan Eye, shared, "Clearwave is the gold standard. They have a very robust eligibility verification tool that helps us make sure we've got everything right before the patient walks in. Combined with a great pre-registration process, we're able to gather the patient data we need to ensure accurate collections at check-in and reduce backend challenges."

Dive deeper to see how CompEye has driven an 154% increase in collections prior to care.

2. Remove Staff From the Payment Ask

One of the most consistent barriers to point-of-service collection is staff reluctance to ask for payment — particularly for past-due balances or larger out-of-pocket amounts. Patient-led kiosks and digital registration tools solve this by presenting financial responsibility directly to the patient as part of the check-in flow, making payment a natural step rather than an awkward conversation.

At OSMS—the Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Specialists of Green Bay—this shift was immediate and measurable. Sandy Titulaer, BSN, RN and Clinical Applications Manager at OSMS, explains, "Prior to Clearwave, some of our staff did not feel comfortable asking for payments at check-in. Now, patients can see what's due and most of the time they just make the payment as part of the process. We're no longer reliant on our staff to make the ask and patients cannot simply skip the payment within Clearwave."

OSMS now collects 76% of co-pays and nearly 60% of patients' same-day balances at check-in, driving an 85% increase in overall collection rates, see how.

3. Collect More Than Just a Co-Pay

Top-performing practices don't stop at co-pays. The highest-impact collection workflows prompt patients to pay deductibles, past-due balances, self-pay responsibility and cost estimates—all at the point of service.

CompEye members using Clearwave see average co-pay collection rates of 74–100% at check-in and a 154% increase in time-of-service collections overall. Texan Eye alone saw collections jump from 35% to 89% after launching Clearwave kiosks, while simultaneously reducing first-pass claim denial rates by 63%.

See how Clearwave transforms the economics of care delivery for healthcare practices across the nation.

Healthcare clinics increase point-of-service patient collections by replacing manual, staff-dependent payment workflows with automated, patient-led tools that verify insurance accurately and prompt payment at check-in.

For many clinics, the gap between what's owed and what's collected at check-in comes down to process — not patient willingness to pay. When patients can see their financial responsibility clearly and pay in the moment, collection rates improve significantly and consistently.

Build a Process Patients Can't Skip

The most effective collection workflows are embedded directly into registration — not tacked on at the end of a visit or forgotten about on a hectic morning. When payment is presented as a natural part of check-in, patients engage with it. When it's handled manually by staff, it often doesn't happen at all.

Holyoke Medical Center, an independent community hospital with over 300 providers caring for 17,000 patients per month, had no structured point-of-service collection process before partnering with Clearwave.

Allison Rheault, EMR Application Analyst at Holyoke, described the before state, "Very little co-pays were collected originally, and it was often difficult to make sure what was collected was accurate."

After launching Clearwave Registration, Holyoke went from collecting almost nothing at check-in to a 56% co-pay collection rate—with specific rules in place by visit type to ensure accuracy every time.

As Chris Giroux, Director of IT Application Services at Holyoke Medical Center, noted, "We've built a process for patients to pay on-the-spot, and we've gone from collecting very little to collecting over half of patient co-pays at check-in, which has been impactful."

Expand Beyond Co-Pays to Capture Total Patient Balances

Clinics that limit point-of-service collection to co-pays leave significant revenue on the table. Leading practices prompt patients for deductibles, past-due balances and estimated responsibility—all within the same check-in workflow.

The Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Specialists of Green Bay, integrating payment collection into self-registration created an 85% increase in overall collections. The self-service experience makes it easy for patients to pay co-pays, outstanding balances, and upfront service fees — without requiring staff involvement at any step. BSN, RN and Clinical Applications Manager, Sandy Titulaer, shares, “We’ve seen a clear rise in collections. The self-registration process makes it easy for patients to pay at check-in, while also helping us capture past-due balances and upfront payments for services like injections.”

Make Eligibility the Foundation

Accurate collections start with accurate insurance data. Practices that run eligibility verification ahead of every appointment — and flag issues before the patient arrives — eliminate the downstream errors that lead to claim rejections and missed revenue.

Comprehensive EyeCare members saw this firsthand: after deploying Clearwave Eligibility alongside registration, Texan Eye decreased first-pass denial rates by 63%, dropping to just 3% on average. Regional VP at CompEye and Administrator at Texan Eye, Chad Jackson, summarized, "We've seen an uplift in the amount of money we're able to collect at the time-of-service, and these tools have helped us reduce our first-pass denial rates."

See how Clearwave helps healthcare clinics of all sizes and specialties build consistent, point-of-service collection workflows that increase revenue from the first patient interaction. Build your demo today.