Case Study: Saint Luke’s Health System achieves accurate upfront estimates, improved patient financial experience and a 26% increase in point-of-service collections with Optum (RelayHealth)

Better Upfront Estimates Help Improve Patient Financial Experience, Increase Point-of-Service Collections

Saint Luke’s Health System faced growing patient self‑pay responsibility and frequent “surprise” bills because staff couldn’t produce accurate upfront cost estimates or efficiently collect at point of service. Working with Optum and its RelayHealth portfolio (RelayClearance™ Plus with RelayClearance™ Estimator, RelayAccount™ and WebPay), Saint Luke’s sought to automate eligibility checks, estimate generation and point‑of‑service payment capture to improve the patient financial experience.

Optum deployed RelayClearance Plus/Estimator and RelayAccount/WebPay to validate insurance, calculate negotiated rates, generate defensible estimates in about a minute, and accept payments anywhere in the facility. As a result, Saint Luke’s reduced charge‑audit requests to monthly and saved a nursing FTE; point‑of‑service collections rose 26%, post‑service collections rose 6%, total payment collections increased 9.4% (adding roughly 4% to net patient revenue), posting times fell from 4–5 days to overnight, and patient satisfaction on financial explanations improved to the 81st percentile.

Saint Luke’s Health System

Paul Knudtson

Director of Patient Access