Patient Payments Playbook for athenahealth Practices

How top-performing Athena physician groups turn patient collections into a growth engine

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High-deductible health plans, volatile coverage, rising out-of-pocket costs — patients now represent the fastest-growing and least predictable payer. Yet most practices still rely primarily on time-of-service collections to resolve outstanding patient balances, leaving significant cash flow on the table.

The 2026 Patient Payments Playbook breaks down what separates high-performing physician groups from the rest: how they simplify the billing experience, how they cohort patient AR before working it, and how they personalize collections instead of running every patient through the same sequence. Featuring case studies from Athena physician groups including Unio Health Partners, ApolloMD, and U.S. Anesthesia Partners.

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Inside the playbook:

• The most reliable methodology for benchmarking patient collection rate — drawn from analysis across hundreds of providers
• Why 70% of patient AR needs a specialized playbook — and the four cohorts that tell you which interventions to use
• The two variables that predict whether a payment plan recovers or defaults — and the bill size where one of them stops mattering

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