Case Study: Kootenai Health improves financial assistance screening with Experian Health

With confidence in data, Kootenai Health qualifies more patients for the right financial assistance or charity programs

Kootenai Health, a community-owned health system serving north Idaho and surrounding regions, needed a better way to screen patients for financial assistance and charity programs. Its existing third-party Medicaid and financial screening process was manual, inefficient, and sometimes wrote off the wrong accounts, so the team sought a more reliable, data-driven workflow. To address this, Kootenai Health turned to Experian Health and its eCare® NEXT Patient Financial Clearance solution.

Experian Health implemented Patient Financial Clearance to automate patient screening and use financial data, Federal Poverty Level ratios, and propensity-to-pay segments to route patients to the right financial pathway in real time. In an eight-week validation study, the solution achieved 88% accuracy and saved 60 hours of staff time by automating presumptive charity screening with verbal patient information and Experian estimates. The new process reduced unnecessary applications and document verification, improved the patient experience, and helped Kootenai Health avoid misclassified charity write-offs while also replacing three external vendor workers with two internal staff employees.

Kootenai Health

Wendy Bird

Manager, Financial Counseling & Cash Fund Posting