Unified Payments = Stronger Revenue
The financial strain in healthcare is evident. On average, hospitals lose around $5 million annually due to denied claims, equivalent to about 5% of net patient revenue.
Across the industry, providers spent nearly $20 billion fighting denials in 2022, with over half that sum wasted on claims that should have been paid.
Patient out-of-pocket costs are rising, shifting more revenue collection to front desk, portal, and mobile channels. Healthcare organizations manage much more than co-pays; they handle reimbursements from payors, vendor invoices for medical supplies, business-to-business transfers with partner organizations, cafeteria and food service transactions, pharmacy sales, and patient payments across numerous departments.
Payments flow through the entire financial system, and addressing only a part leaves untapped opportunities. Why Payments Belong in Revenue Cycle Management The revenue cycle has always been fragmented. One vendor handles eligibility, another automates coding, and a third manages denials. They all approach the same provider from different angles.
Strengthening the Revenue Cycle
An ISV that operates in this cycle has an immediate opportunity: integrate payments and financial services functionality to deepen the value it delivers to healthcare clients and their patients. Patient and payor collections are a core part of revenue cycle management, and they matter greatly to providers.
Healthcare organizations also manage vendor invoices, business-to-business transfers, and internal flows like cafeteria and pharmacy transactions. Together, these represent the full picture of how money moves across the enterprise.
When ISVs address both revenue cycle management (RCM) and the broader payments landscape, they create a more complete solution. Patient and payor collections strengthen the revenue cycle. Vendor and internal payments expand the reach to the entire financial system. The companies that bring these together position themselves as financial partners with staying power. Owning payments creates durability when a platform becomes the rail for money movement; it stops being a feature and starts becoming the foundation of the organization’s financial operations.
Payments are sticky by nature. Once embedded, they are extremely difficult to replace. That durability makes them one of the most powerful levers for long-term growth, extending customer lifetime value and creating room for expansion into adjacent services. Providers are looking for partners who can support the entire strategy for how money moves—from patients and payors to vendors and internal services like pharmacy and cafeteria.
The ISV that unifies those flows stops being a point solution. It becomes infrastructure, the layer that healthcare organizations depend on to function.
A Strategic Path Forward
Healthcare providers are under pressure to prove return on investment (ROI) quickly. They care about fewer denials, faster reimbursements, higher collection rates, and more satisfied patients. Payments are the most direct lever that ties technology investment to financial outcomes.
For SaaS companies, leading with payments opens doors to conversations that matter most: how the hospital’s financial system operates and how it can be improved. The path is clear. Start with any part of RCM. Layer in payments. Then expand into becoming the financial foundation for all money flows across the enterprise. That is how ISVs move beyond point solutions and secure their place as long-term partners.
Healthcare’s financial backbone is payments. If a SaaS company can solve even a slice of the revenue cycle, it can also solve payments. Providers are asking for every payment option, from wallets and ACH to buy-now-pay-later and embedded finance. Whoever unifies those flows will not just add value; they will become the infrastructure hospitals rely on.
