With The Acquisition Of PARO, Waystar Adds Presumptive Charity Scoring Solution To Its Technology Platform

Predictive analytics power PARO's presumptive charity care solution, helping make healthcare more affordable for millions of patients each year while reducing debt for hospitals

Chicago, IL and Louisville KY /PRNewswire/ - Waystar, a leading provider of revenue cycle technology, today announced the acquisition of PARO, a financial assistance predictive analytics solution designed for the healthcare industry. The solution, now offered as a part of Waystar's technology platform, helps hospitals better assess charity care, reduce bad debt and meet community benefit requirements.

Nonprofit hospitals are required to make reasonable efforts to determine if patients are eligible for financial assistance before engaging in collections to demonstrate community benefit and maintain their not-for-profit status. The PARO presumptive charity solution automates this process to proactively and consistently identify patients that qualify for charity under a provider's Financial Assistance Policy. This solution eliminates barriers for patients that might face challenges in completing a traditional financial assistance application. This electronic screening tool also enables hospitals to correctly classify a patient account prior to bad debt, thus improving the hospital's financial assistance footprint while directly benefiting patients. PARO provides a fair and consistent evaluation for financial assistance, ensures legal compliance and helps hospitals deliver on their community benefit mission.

"As we continue to build a powerful platform to make financial processes simpler and more productive, bringing on best-in-class technology is crucial—and charity determination is an increasingly vital part of the healthcare revenue cycle equation," said Matt Hawkins, Waystar CEO. "PARO is the original and leading predictive-analytics-powered solution in charity-related healthcare. Adding this technology to the Waystar platform further empowers us to provide health systems and hospitals with cutting-edge solutions to address their evolving challenges."

In 2018, PARO's technology screened nearly 11 million patient visits and identified more than 3.5 million patient visits as eligible for free or discounted care, thus reclassifying more than 30 percent of what would otherwise be considered bad debt write offs to charitable care. Unlike other solutions, PARO presumptive charity does not use credit scores as an evaluation metric (thus avoiding credit checks, which can disgruntle patients). PARO pioneered the use of public-record data to help hospitals assess patients living in poverty and patients who live in the financial shadows.

"Waystar represents an ideal partner for PARO's technology. Joining forces accelerates the adoption of crucial presumptive charity solutions by leveraging the vast resources of Waystar's national footprint," said Neil Smithson, managing member of PARO Decision Support. "The combination of assets, technical talent and presence will arm customers with the tools to further improve patient financial health and revenue cycle operations."

Waystar's acquisition of PARO comes on the heels of a busy year of product expansion. In September of last year, Waystar strengthened its revenue cycle management capabilities with the acquisition of Connance, a leading provider of workflow driven by predictive analytics solutions. Just a month later, the company added enhanced claims monitoring capabilities through its acquisition of the transaction services business from UPMC's Ovation. With the addition of a pioneering solution for automating the financial assistance process, Waystar continues to build on its mission to improve healthcare through comprehensive and innovative technology.

About Waystar
Waystar provides next-generation, cloud-based technology that simplifies and unifies the healthcare revenue cycle. The Waystar platform removes friction in payment processes, streamlines workflows and improves financials for providers in every care setting. Waystar has scored Best in KLAS® every year since 2010 and earned multiple #1 rankings from Black Book™ surveys since 2012. The Waystar platform supports more than 450,000 providers, 750 health systems and hospitals, and 5,000 payers and health plans. For more information, visit waystar.com or follow @Waystar on Twitter.

About PARO
PARO Decision Support, LLC, specializes in electronic screening for charity care classification to healthcare providers nationwide. The company, formed in 2006, deploys custom calibrated predictive models for healthcare revenue cycle segmentation and charity care. PARO services nearly 1,000 hospital locations directly through custom interfaces and through a network of value-added integration partners.