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Media Contact: Jennifer Vansant at 858-200-9213 or jvansant@csifinancial.com
CSI and Varisol Renew Commitment to Improve Hospitals' Revenue Cycles, Financial Results and Patient Satisfaction Second-year anniversary of partnership marked by upward trend in demand for automated patient loan programs and increased benefits to both patients and hospitals San Diego, California, July 31, 2007 -- On the second anniversary of their partnership, CSI Financial Services, Inc. and its sister company, Varisol, announced a renewed commitment to their mission of shortening revenue cycles and improving financial results of hospitals and other healthcare organizations. The two companies are leaders in helping healthcare organizations become more profitable by purchasing bad debt and offering affordable, compassionate patient loan programs to underinsured and uninsured patients. CSI provides patient loan programs by which a broad range of patients can easily qualify for loans at competitive rates with low monthly payments if they are not able to pay their medical debt when due. Unlike similar companies, CSI's processes are automated and metric-driven to offer hospitals a fast, consistent and flexible way to provide patient loans without the need for loan applications or time-consuming data entry and credit checks. A key part of CSI's automated program is computer analysis and evaluation of a hospital's portfolio to better manage risk -- without the need to buy equipment or software. Additionally, hospitals can easily generate a variety of reports from any Web-based computer. Trends in the uninsured and underinsured populations have led to a dramatic increase in patient-paid receivables. On average, they represent 15 to 20 percent of a healthcare provider's receivables, yet only two to five percent of their net revenue. By taking advantage of CSIs unique financing methods, healthcare providers can easily provide affordable financing to a diverse and underserved portion of their patient population and significantly improve on collections. While CSI offers loans to patients with current obligations, Varisol focuses on the purchase of delinquent and charged-off self-pay and balance-after-insurance accounts. This approach eliminates risk and provides immediate cash flow to the hospital -- often in as little as three days after signing an agreement. Additionally, the hospital reduces administrative costs, since there's no longer a need to manage the collections process and update account information or continue to try to collect on old accounts. Importantly, Varisol, like CSI, utilizes call centers with professionally trained customer service representatives to ensure that patients are treated with dignity and respect in a manner that is fully compliant with relevant laws and regulations. "Both CSI and Varisol understand the daily struggles facing healthcare facilities as they attempt to meet their financial obligations without sacrificing patient relations," said Mitch Patridge, chief executive of CSI Financial Services and Varisol. "Our joint mission has been and will continue to focus on developing financing programs to meet the specific needs of a given hospital while also providing affordable loans and compassionate services to patients." The two-year old partnership between CSI and Varisol was established to create solutions for hospitals that are experiencing financial difficulty due to record increases in the number of self-paid after-insurance healthcare accounts that go uncollected. The increase in uncollected accounts has provided enormous boosts to the accounts receivable management ("ARM") industry servicing the healthcare sector. In 2005, this industry generated $2.5 billion in revenue. Additionally, industry experts Kaulkin and Ginzberg currently estimate the bad debt allowance for hospitals in the U.S. to be approximately $129 billion. Since 2005 when the partnership was formalized, the two companies have expanded their portfolios throughout all states across the nation. In 2006, CSI expanded its national roster of hospitals and portfolio of patient accounts significantly over the previous year. In addition, among Varisol's milestones was a $480 million acquisition of delinquent and charged-off patients' accounts from a single hospital group, which represents one of the largest acquisitions in healthcare history. "This anniversary gives us a chance to reflect on our success," Patridge said. "Nevertheless, we realize that there are literally thousands of hospitals and patients that would benefit from our offering. That is why we are doing everything possible to continue to increase the efficiency and cost effectiveness of our services and improve our outreach to hospitals, other healthcare facilities and patients in need." CSI Financial Services has offered patients non-application based loan programs funded by national and state chartered banks since 1992. CSI has provided hospital patients with more than $200 million in loans to meet their healthcare obligations. For more information about CSI Financial Services visit www.csifinancial.com. CSI, through its sister company Varisol, purchases charged-off healthcare accounts; closing on approximately one billion in purchases in the first half of 2007. For information on Varisol please visit www.varisol.net. |
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