We recently interviewed Gregory Parkhurst, M.D., LASIK and cataract surgeon, and founder at Parkhurst NuVision, to gain insights into his practice’s experience with CoFi.

Located in San Antonio, the practice maintains a sizeable network of referring optometrists. Parkhurst NuVision has been a CoFi customer since August 2021.

Using CoFi, their patients no longer have to pay different parties at different points in time for surgical procedures. “It’s so convenient for the patient now. They simply run their card once at our practice and pay for the entire surgery. As importantly, through CoFi, each party collects from the patient in separate transactions. It's made the patient experience just so much more streamlined and modern.”

1. If you were talking to another practice administrator or surgeon who was thinking about using CoFi, what would you tell them?

My number one goal is to deliver awesome vision and an amazing experience to my patients at the same time. CoFi aids in that goal. The product makes the payment experience easy and reduces the friction around multiple payment events. CoFi also provides us with a clear way to document and demonstrate all the great lengths we take to ensure that all our co-management activities are fully compliant. It's a mechanism for me to deliver an amazing patient experience with transparency throughout, with less confusion and more ease of use.

2. How did you handle co-management payments prior to using CoFi?

We would have our patients make payments to the different entities that were involved in a surgical event. The co-managing OD, our office, and the ASC each generated bills for the patient to pay directly.

3. What was the pain point for your patients?

The payment process could be cumbersome for our patients. Most often, they have two surgeries for their cataracts. This creates a scenario where there are a lot of appointments and visits – pre-op, the operation, post-op – with multiple providers. And they had to make a payment to each party. Patients might ask themselves “Where am I today and how much do I pay here?”

4. How would you describe patient payments now that you use CoFi?

It’s so convenient for the patient now. They simply run their card once at our practice and pay for the entire surgery. As importantly, through CoFi, each party collects from the patient in separate transactions. It's made the patient experience just so much more streamlined and modern. We can clearly demonstrate in one conversation, instead six or eight, what the fees are for each entity. These days we use apps like Venmo and we're used to having things be easy and digital and clear and transparent. CoFi creates that environment for the patient.

5. What attracted you to the product?

CoFi is a more efficient way for us to manage patient payments. For patients, they’re able to pay the different entities all at the same time in separate transactions. For the co-managing practices, the whole process is much more transparent, as they can login to CoFi to see a patient’s surgery date and they also get paid by the patient in real-time.

6. What was the onboarding process like?

We collaborate on patient care with over 50 referring optometry practices plus the ASCs we use. CoFi onboarded those practices for us efficiently. Now, most surgical patients we serve are referred to us through the doctors who have on-boarded to our CoFi account.

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