8 Companies that Handle Both Medical Billing and Patient Support for Growing Practices 

By Your Health Magazine Contributor

Your Health Magazine Contributor

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8 Companies that Handle Both Medical Billing and Patient Support for Growing Practices 

A confusing bill starts a chain of phone calls. The patient calls your front desk, your staff forwards the question to an outside biller, and the answer comes back days later, after the patient has already decided whether to pay, dispute the charge, or leave a review. 

As practices add providers and locations, many owners decide to outsource medical billing services, then find that the vendor works the claims but not the phone calls those claims generate. The eight companies below cover both sides: payer-facing revenue cycle work and patient-facing support for statements, balances, coverage questions, and payment plans. 

Why should one vendor handle billing and patient support? 

One vendor closes the gap between the team that builds a claim and the team that explains it to the patient. When the person on the phone can see the claim history, the payer response, and the current balance, they can resolve a billing question in one call instead of routing it through your front desk and back again. 

Practice leaders are moving in this direction. In a November 19, 2024, MGMA Stat poll, 36 percent of medical practice leaders said their organizations would outsource or automate part of their revenue cycle in 2025. Collections, billing, and coding were the most common targets among the 352 respondents. 

Patients feel the other half of the problem. In a YouGov survey commissioned by AKASA, 38 percent of 2,026 US adults rated medical bills somewhat or extremely confusing. Respondents named understanding what they were billed for as their top frustration (29 percent), and 27 percent said a call from the practice before a procedure, walking through what they would owe, would help them most. 

What to Compare When Evaluating Providers

Medical billing and patient-support providers differ in how they deliver their services. Some offer fully managed billing and staffed patient-support teams, while others combine software platforms with outsourced revenue-cycle services or call-center options. Practices should compare the specific billing functions provided, how patient questions are handled, whether support is delivered by people or primarily through software, and how the service fits with their existing systems and staffing needs.

Quick comparison: billing and patient support providers 

A Closer Look at Three Providers

1. Helpware 

This BPO runs medical billing and patient support as one managed operation, so the team that works your claims also answers the patient calls those claims produce. On the billing side it covers charge entry and claims management, eligibility verification and prior authorization, coding and audits, payment posting, and denial management with appeals. 

Its patient support team handles billing and statement questions, benefits navigation, appointment scheduling, and reminders across phone, chat, and email, with AI handling routine status checks and people taking the hard calls. Helpware reports 90 percent CSAT across its patient support programs, coverage in more than 45 languages from 19 locations, and client partnerships that average more than five years, a useful signal for practices whose patients speak Spanish or another language at home. 

Service focus: Growing practices and telehealth providers that need billing and patient lines to scale together under SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA controls. 

Keep in mind: It works as a managed service inside your existing EHR and practice management system, so you keep your current software and add a team. 

2. Athenahealth 

The AthenaOne platform bundles AthenaCollector, its revenue cycle and practice management service, with AthenaCommunicator for patient engagement. Practices can add medical coding and prior authorization management to the billing side, and they can hand certain patient engagement tasks to athenahealth specialists instead of front-desk staff. 

Service focus: Independent practices that want EHR, billing, and patient engagement in one system. 

Keep in mind: Much of the patient support runs through software (self-scheduling, outreach messages, the patient portal). If you want people answering billing calls, ask what the service includes. 

3. CareCloud 

CareCloud combines RCM, practice management, EHR, and patient experience tools, and its CareCloud Concierge service takes over claims and collections work. The company also sells a Patient Call Center add-on. U.S. Physiatry, a practice with no physical office locations, used that call center for patient communications and reported record-high patient collections after adopting it. CareCloud says it serves more than 40,000 providers. 

Service focus: Practices that want software, billing services, and a patient call center under one contract. 

Keep in mind: The call center is priced as an add-on, so request it as a separate line in the quote. 

4. Tebra 

Formed in 2021 from the merger of Kareo and PatientPop, Tebra serves independent practices with clinical, billing, and patient engagement modules. Practices that want to outsource billing go through its managed billing program, which matches them with a vetted independent billing company that works inside the Tebra platform. Patient tools cover online scheduling, reminders, digital intake, and a patient portal. 

Service focus: Small and new independent practices that want one platform and a matched billing partner. 

Keep in mind: The billing work comes from a partner company, and patient support is self-service software. Your staff will still take most billing calls. 

5. Ventra Health 

Ventra Health focuses on facility-based physician groups, including anesthesia, emergency medicine, and radiology. Its Patient Responsibility team owns the patient side of the revenue cycle, and its contact center specialists answer calls about bills, insurance, Explanation of Benefits forms, and payment arrangements. Ventra says it exhausts non-patient payment sources before it bills a patient. 

Service focus: Hospital-based specialty groups whose patients never see a front desk and need a phone number on the statement that someone answers. 

Keep in mind: Office-based primary care practices sit outside its core focus. 

6. Omega Healthcare 

Omega Healthcare offers patient access services (scheduling, registration, eligibility, and prior authorization), a healthcare call center, mid-cycle coding, and back-end business office work. The company says its revenue cycle teams manage more than $15 billion in collections each year, and it lists large physician practices and independent physician groups among its provider clients. 

Service focus: Multisite groups with high claim and call volumes. 

Keep in mind: The model fits larger groups. A three-provider practice should ask about minimum volumes and who its account manager would be. 

7. AGS Health 

AGS Health pairs patient access services, such as pre-registration, financial clearance, and patient payment estimates, with coding and patient financial services. Its customer service representatives answer patient billing calls, investigate payment status, and set up payment options over the phone. KLAS named AGS Health the Most Improved Services Solution for 2024, and its customer types include physician groups and management services organizations (MSOs). 

Service focus: Physician groups and MSOs with heavy prior authorization and front-end workloads. 

Keep in mind: A large share of its work serves hospitals and health systems, so ask for references from physician groups your size. 

8. Plutus Health 

Plutus Health, based in Dallas, runs full-cycle RCM for medical and behavioral health specialties, covering coding, billing, payment posting, denial management, credentialing, and prior authorizations. It prices as a percentage of collections with no upfront setup fee and offers patient e-statement software and a patient payment portal. Its patient service representatives take inbound calls about statements, balances, and payment options. The firm is SOC 2 certified. 

Service focus: Multispecialty, behavioral health, and applied behavior analysis (ABA) practices. 

Keep in mind: Confirm whether patient calls fall inside the base percentage or carry a separate fee. 

How to choose the right partner for your practice 

Use these six steps to compare finalists on the work your staff does today: 

1. Count your billing calls. Track for two weeks how many calls your front desk takes about balances, statements, and insurance before you request quotes.
   
2. Ask who answers the phone. Confirm whether the vendor’s own employees, a partner company, or software handles patient questions.
   
3. Check data access. Ask the vendor to show you the screen its agents use, and confirm it shows the claim, the payer response, and the patient balance together.
   
4. Request specialty references. Ask for two clients in your specialty and size range, and call both.
   
5. Set shared KPIs. MGMA consultant Kem Tolliver cites a 90 percent clean claims rate as an industry best practice. Add patient-side measures such as first-contact resolution and call abandonment rate.
   
6. Review compliance. Request HIPAA documentation, a business associate agreement, and any SOC 2 Type II report.
   

Key takeaways 

• Claims and patient calls draw on the same data, so one partner can answer billing questions faster than a split setup.
  
• Managed-service firms give you staffed phone lines; platforms give you self-service tools and leave most calls with your team.
  
• Match the vendor to your specialty and size: Ventra for facility-based groups, Tebra for small independents, Omega and AGS for large groups.
  
• Ask every finalist who answers the phone and what that person can see.
  

Frequently asked questions 

What is the difference between a medical billing company and a patient support provider? 

A medical billing company works with payers: it codes encounters, submits claims, posts payments, and appeals denials. A patient support provider works with patients: it answers questions about statements and coverage, sets up payment plans, and handles scheduling. The companies on this list do both, which keeps the explanation a patient hears consistent with the claim the payer saw. 

How are combined billing and patient support services priced? 

Many billing firms charge a percentage of collections; Plutus Health advertises that model with no setup fee. Patient support often appears as a separate line, such as the CareCloud Patient Call Center add-on. Ask each vendor to quote the two pieces as separate lines so you can compare quotes on equal terms. 

When should a growing practice outsource both? 

Look at three signals: front-desk staff spend check-in time on billing calls, days in accounts receivable (A/R) climb as you add providers, and you open locations faster than you can hire billers. If two of the three apply, request proposals from vendors that cover both functions. 

Will outsourcing patient billing calls hurt the patient relationship? 

It depends on preparation. In the AKASA survey, 27 percent of adults said a pre-procedure call explaining what they would owe would help them most. A partner that makes those calls in your practice name, with your financial policy in front of it, can improve the relationship. Review scripts and listen to recorded calls during the first month.