Patient financing belongs in the digital front door: report
NEVADA, UNITED STATES — Health systems that have invested in digital front door technology for scheduling, registration, and patient communication are leaving patient financing out of the redesign, with billing conversations still arriving as paper statements or phone calls long after care has been delivered, even as patients’ share of the medical bill climbs steadily.
The argument comes from Drew Allen of Conceptualized Inc., in an analysis published by Healthcare IT Today.
Patient out-of-pocket costs now outpace collections
Writing in Healthcare IT Today, Allen argues that health systems have built sophisticated digital front doors for scheduling and registration while leaving financing workflows entirely separate. The patient’s first contact with billing often comes via a paper statement weeks after discharge, long after the digital engagement window has closed.
“Health systems and practices have spent the past several years building out the digital front door: online scheduling, patient portals, digital intake, and telehealth triage,” Allen wrote.
The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) Employer Health Benefits Survey found that the average single-coverage deductible climbed from $1,217 a decade ago to $1,886 in 2025, with more than a third of covered workers now enrolled in a plan carrying an individual deductible of $2,000 or higher.
Embedding financing before the visit helps
Kodiak Solutions’ 2026 State of the Healthcare Revenue Cycle report found that the insured patient’s share of net revenue grew from 6.8% to 7.3% between 2024 and 2025, while the share of that responsibility providers actually collected fell from 45.1% to 42.4%. The result is a growing self-pay and underinsured balance that traditional billing cycles are ill-equipped to recover.
“This gap is becoming harder to justify as patients cover more of the bill themselves and technology to fix it becomes widely available,” Allen wrote.
Experian Health’s State of Patient Access research found that roughly 70% of patients want their healthcare financial experience to mirror other services: clear pricing, digital payment options, and the same flexibility expected from consumer-facing platforms.
The combination of rising patient cost-sharing and widening digital payment expectations is driving rapid expansion of digital front door platforms. Mordor Intelligence projects the market will grow from approximately $31.66 billion in 2026 to $82.25 billion by 2031, a trajectory that encompasses not just scheduling and intake but the patient financial experience.
Health systems evaluating outsourced patient financial services and business process outsourcing (BPO) for billing and collections can benchmark vendors through the top healthcare outsourcing companies in the United States, including those that integrate artificial intelligence (AI) tools for cost transparency and payment flexibility.
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Disclosure: Outsource Accelerator uses AI tools in the backend of its editorial workflow. Every article is reviewed and verified by a human editor before publication.
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