Healthcare software provider nTelagent has raised a $1.7 million Series E round. Investors include Burch Investment Group.

Other investors include Marty Rash, former founder, chair and CEO of Province Healthcare Co., and the late Chris Hannon, former CFO of Province.

Chairman, CEO and founder Earl T. Winter tells TechJournal South the company has raised a total of over $4 million, with the current round the largest.

Founded in 2003, nTelagent has developed the retail application for the healthcare industry called the Self-Pay Management System (SPMS).

Similar to applications used in the retail industry at the point of sale, the company's proprietary, automated system tells healthcare registrars and financial counselors exactly what to do and what to say to each patient.

It's sold on an application service provider model (more commonly called software as a service now). "That means customers don't have to buy anything (but the service) and the IT departments do not have to get involved," says Winter.

The company says that based on a national study it conducted, two-thirds of all bad debt is caused by insured patients.

Healthcare service providers simply are not collecting the deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance and out-of-pocket payments due from patients because many providers do not have the proper systems and processes in place at the point of service, the company says.

“In addition, many patients eligible for government assistance and charity care programs are not being enrolled," says Winter.

"Because of the urgent need for healthcare providers to better manage the accounts of self-pay patients, there is a large and growing market for our Self-Pay Management System, which allows providers to take more of a 'retail' approach with self-pay patient financial accounts," says Winter.

"The problem is very severe," he adds. "Some hospitals are closing their doors because they haven't had the retail application to address the consumer piece, which is growing larger all the time."

The application is "first of its kind and making an incredible impact for our customers," says Winter.

He said the new round of funding will help the company expand its presence in the industry and it will heighten sales and marketing activities.

The 20 employee company is hiring every month, says Winter. "We're in the process of hiring more development and sales people now."

SPMS provides registrars and financial counselors with interactive scripts that integrate patient demographic information with each provider's unique business policies and rules.

The system also allows for price transparency and automatically identifies discounting, social services eligibility and charity care options when applicable, ensuring that patient financial accounting -- for both insured and uninsured patients -- is handled appropriately and consistently.

The company says its analysis of 40 healthcare service providers aged trial balances showed that about half of patient accounts written off as bad debt had the capacity to pay for services.

Another 17 percent of accounts written off as bad debt involved patients eligible for 4,000 government assistance or charity care programs, but were not enrolled.


Winter says a number of large hospital associations such as the South Carolina Hospital Association and the Mississippi Hospital Association have endorsed the product, which has helped drive adoption.

"We'll be announcing another large endorsement from one in the Southwest next week," he says.

He notes that the company focuses not just on hosptials, but also on a number of other healthcare veriticals with niche clinical applications.