Wells Fargo Patient Payment Solution Increases Collections, Cuts Costs for Healthcare Providers

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) said today it now offers an online payments tool that helps healthcare providers increase payment collections from patients and decrease collection costs. Called Patient Payment Solution (PPS), the new service verifies patients’ insurance eligibility, estimates charges, collects amounts due, and sets up payment plans.

With Wells Fargo PPS, health care providers can securely collect payments in person, online, by phone or mail. PPS works with multiple payment instruments: credit cards, debit cards, checks, and Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments. Wells Fargo is partnering with InstaMed to offer PPS.

“Wells Fargo PPS enables healthcare providers to check patients’ benefit coverage and responsibility, arrange for payments, and collect them efficiently,” said Keith Theisen, executive vice president and director of product management for Wells Fargo’s Treasury Management Group. “The result is a dramatic increase in patient collections and a reduction in the administrative costs of collecting.”

“With the successful launch of Wells Fargo PPS, we are excited to support Wells Fargo and its clients on our Healthcare Payments Network,” said Bill Marvin, president and CEO of InstaMed. “As patient collections and healthcare payments increase in complexity, InstaMed is exclusively focused on addressing these challenges impacting providers, payers and patients.”

Wells Fargo offers comprehensive financial services to the healthcare industry. The company’s Healthcare Financial Services (HFS) division is among the nation’s largest providers to not-for-profit healthcare providers. With healthcare teams nationwide, HFS offers commercial and investment banking, including public and private capital raising, credit, treasury management, asset management, trust, insurance, and equipment finance. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo U.S. Corporate Banking has a team of 25-plus dedicated health care professionals who deliver comprehensive financial services to for-profit healthcare companies.

About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a nationwide, diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.3 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 9,000 stores, 12,000 ATMs, the Internet (wellsfargo.com and wachovia.com), and other distribution channels across North America and internationally. With approximately 280,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in America. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 19 on Fortune’s 2009 rankings of America’s largest corporations. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy all our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially.

About InstaMed
InstaMed is the leading Healthcare Payments Network connecting providers, payers and patients with healthcare clearinghouse, eligibility, estimation and payment transactions on one integrated platform. InstaMed enables providers to get paid more efficiently, payers to disburse payments at a lower cost with fewer incidents of fraud, and patients to experience a simple, convenient and secure way to pay. The InstaMed Network powers healthcare payments for over 100,000 users nationally with tens of billions of dollars in healthcare payments processed. Visit InstaMed on the web at www.instamed.com.