Ravi H. Patel, M.D. is a Cornea, Cataract and Refractive Specialist at Eye Associates of Central Texas in Round Rock, Texas. Dr. Patel discusses his practice’s experience using CoFi to enable patients to separately pay multiple providers involved in their procedure in one single payment event.

“With CoFi, the collection of patient payments is streamlined and much easier for patients to manage and understand. CoFi allows patients to pay all the separate fees for their surgery in one payment event. This alleviates any misunderstanding and confusion and creates a positive patient experience.”

“In my opinion, CoFi is the best way to properly co-manage cataract and LASIK surgery patients and ensure compliance issues are avoided.”

1. What were your main reasons / the pain points that led you to add CoFi to your practice?

One of the biggest challenges with cataract surgery is the co-management of these patients, and ensuring billing and payments are handled correctly. For premium IOL and LASIK procedures, prior to CoFi, we would collect our fees, then inform patients they can expect to also get a bill from the co-managing optometrist and ASC. Patients needed to keep track of these charges themselves and, in the case of refractive cataract surgery when we and the ASC collect one eye at a time, make as many as 5 payments, which created much confusion.

2. How has CoFi addressed these pain points?

With CoFi, the collection of patient payments is streamlined and much easier for patients to manage and understand. CoFi allows patients to pay all the separate parties involved in their surgery in one payment event, including the optometrist’s fee for post-operative care. This alleviates any misunderstanding and confusion and creates a positive patient experience.

3. What do the optometrists say about using system?

The reactions from optometrists we work with have been very positive. They used to also have challenges with patients being confused about payments. And having to collect their portion at the post-op visit, after the patient had already paid our practice and the ASC, was a source of frustration – for both the optometrist and the patient. This often led to issues with the patient’s experience. CoFi has essentially eliminated all of this and streamlined the process for everyone involved.

4. Can you discuss the onboarding process with CoFi and your staff’s experience using the system?

The onboarding process was very efficient and fast. We had an initial phone call and demonstration then we were up and running. CoFi worked really well with our practice to engage the optometrists we work with, who also onboarded to CoFi quickly. Our staff loves using the CoFi system as it saves time and is easy to use.

5. Your practice is using CoFi’s multi-party patient financing solution. How is this working?

Prior to this solution, if a patient needed to finance a procedure, they could only finance our fees – they then would need to come up with funds to pay the optometrist and the ASC separately. This was inconvenient for the patient and we wanted to make this easier for them. Now with CoFi, we have one easy to use solution that enables each party’s fees to be included in the financing, with the disbursement of the loan funds handled conveniently and compliantly.

6. What would you say to another surgeon or practice administrator thinking about using CoFi?

In my opinion, CoFi is the best way to properly co-manage cataract and LASIK surgery patients and ensure compliance issues are avoided. I highly recommend the product and the company. 

Download the PDF here