CoFi announced the launch and nationwide availability of a multi-party financing solution in partnership with Alphaeon Credit for ophthalmology practices and their surgical partners. Practices now can offer their patients the ability to finance the fees of every party involved in a premium procedure—such as LASIK, SMILE, premium IOL cataract surgery, and more—with funds distributed compliantly and directly to each party.
CoFi Addresses Significant Financing Challenges for Services Involving Multiple Providers
- Many elective procedures involve multiple providers, such as the surgeon and the surgery center or hospital, and sometimes a co-managing optometrist.
- Most often, only the surgeon’s practice is a customer of the patient financing company. It is almost impossible to get all of the parties aligned in the same financing program and offering patients the same plans.
- Moreover, loan funds are deposited directly to the surgeon’s practice. If the patient’s loan includes other parties’ fees, the surgeon must send those funds to those other providers – which can create the appearance of real and undesirable compliance risks.
CoFi launched its payment software in March 2021 with the ability to facilitate convenient, compliant payments directly to multiple parties when patients paid with cards and checks. With CoFi, each party charges the patient separately and collects directly from the patient. Nearly 1,500 doctors use CoFi for these purposes today.
Now, through this partnership with Alphaeon Credit, CoFi is bringing the same level of convenience and compliance to patient financing:
- Convenience: Patients can finance the entire procedure, including any party’s fees;
- Compliance: Funds are distributed directly to each party involved in the procedure – before they reach the surgeon’s bank account;
- Ease of Adoption: The surgeon’s surgical partners – ASCs, Optometrists, Anesthesiology, etc. – do not need to enroll with Alphaeon Credit.
“Our practice has been using the CoFi-Alphaeon solution for several months now,” Gregory Parkhurst, MD, Founder and Physician CEO at Parkhurst NuVision in San Antonio, Texas, said in a company news release. “This product addresses the ‘last mile’ of compliance and convenience related to how payments are handled. We no longer have to inconvenience our patients by requiring them to come up with funds or a separate loan to pay the co-managing optometrist or other third party like the surgery center.”
“This is an exciting moment for our customers, as our product now can processes patient payments by card, check, and financing,” said Sean Hanlon, CEO of CoFi. “CoFi eliminates the frustrating, often confusing patient experience of having to make multiple payments to different providers at different points in time. Through our partnership with Alphaeon Credit, we’re also able to eliminate all of the barriers that had prevented optometrists and ASCs from participating in the patient’s financing.”
Each of the doctors currently on the CoFi platform are eligible to participate. The solution can be turned on for the surgical practices using Alphaeon Credit today and then it’s a phone call and a click of a button to enable it for ASCs and co-managing optometrists.
“We chose to partner with CoFi to provide a complete financing option that’s compliant for practices and convenient for patients,” said Tony Seymour, President of Alphaeon Credit. “We have worked closely with the CoFi team to design this solution to meet the needs of our customers and their patients. The product integration aligns to our goal of providing ophthalmic practices with a patient-friendly and easy-to-use financing experience.”
Practices that are new to CoFi can visit cofimd.com to learn more about this patient financing solution plus multi-party patient payments with cards or checks.
