Emmett Bernsohn
West Texas Health, formerly Abilene Diagnostic Clinic, is a 40-provider multi-specialty physician group that has served the Abilene, Texas area and surrounding communities for more than 50 years. As a member of Privia Medical Group — West Texas, the practice operates as an independent, physician-led organization providing coordinated care across a broad range of primary care and specialty services.
The group’s specialties include primary care, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, plastic surgery, podiatry, chiropractic, spine care, cardiology, allergy and immunology, ear, nose and throat, and occupational health — supported by on-site laboratory services, imaging, and immunization clinics. Providers serve patients across a network of clinic locations in Abilene, San Angelo, Brownwood, Merkel, Clyde, and Snyder, along with coordinated care relationships with regional hospitals and skilled nursing facilities.
The Numbers Tell the Story
- 8,756 Patient Payments Captured
- 5,280 Patients Who Paid
- 8,620 Bills Resolved
- 16 days Patient AR Days via Rivia Health
- 60 days Industry Avg Patient AR Days
- ~73% Reduction in Days to Pay
- 11 % Revenue Recovered from Balances 90+ Days
- 44% Revenue from Balances 0–90 Days
The Challenge
Multi-specialty groups carry a uniquely complex financial profile. Patient balances range from routine primary-care copays under ten dollars to surgical and obstetric responsibilities in the thousands. Follow-up must be coordinated across dozens of specialties, multiple physical locations, and a patient population that skews from young families in pediatrics to Medicare beneficiaries in cardiology and internal medicine.
Before partnering with Rivia Health, patient payment follow-up at West Texas Health required significant billing-team hours across phone calls, portal messages, and paper statements. Balances that aged past 90 days became increasingly difficult to recover. Smaller balances — the ones under twenty-five dollars that make up a meaningful share of primary-care and specialty visit volume — were routinely written off because the cost of chasing them outweighed the return. Collections agencies, when used, charged 35 to 45 percent and typically declined balances under one hundred dollars.
The practice needed a solution that could reach patients where they already are — by text and email — across a large, geographically dispersed patient base, without adding to staff workload, and that could capture revenue across the full spectrum of balances, including the small and aged ones that would otherwise never be resolved.
The Solution
Rivia Health works alongside the existing EHR to automate patient payment follow-up from the moment a balance enters billed status. Patients receive personalized, HIPAA-compliant communications by text and email — alternating channels and adjusting cadence based on time zone, balance age, and provider preferences.
There is no portal to log into, no app to download, and no account to create. Patients tap a secure link, verify their identity, and see every outstanding balance across the practice in one place. They can pay in full, set up a payment plan, or update their payment method — all in under two minutes.
For West Texas Health, Rivia Health was up and running quickly, with no IT lift, no workflow disruption, and no staff training required. The billing team retained full visibility and control through Rivia Connect, where they view patient billing data across every department and location, send quick pay links, manage payment plans, and customize outreach by text or email.
West Texas Health has entered the fourth year of partnership with Rivia Health in 2026. Our multi-specialty provider group has seen consistent growth in patient contact and engagement throughout. Adding Rivia Health’s partnership to our RCM team gives our patients the flexibility to personally manage their financial responsibilities on their terms.
Harry Baxter, Manager, Central Billing Office
Over 300K Patient Communications
Effective patient payment follow-up starts with reaching patients in a way they will actually respond to. Over the partnership to date, Rivia Health sent 366,812 automated communications to 22,623 patients on behalf of West Texas Health — by text and email, without a single outbound phone call from the billing team.
Unlike systems that send separate messages for every individual bill, Rivia Health consolidates all outstanding balances into a single communication per patient. For a multi-specialty practice where one patient may have simultaneous balances from primary care, imaging, and a specialist visit, this consolidation reduces message fatigue, decreases patient complaints, and drives higher engagement.
Performance data tells the story:
- 366,812 Total Automated Communications
- 22,623 Patients Reached
- 83% Text Consent Rate
- 74% Email Consent Rate
- 1% Text Opt-Out Rate
- 0% Email Unsubscribe Rate
A 1% text opt-out rate and 0% email unsubscribe rate across 366,812 messages. Over nearly three years, patients overwhelmingly chose to stay reachable. That matters: when patients stay subscribed, they stay reachable, and reachable patients pay.
Billing Staff Time Recovered
Every patient balance that is resolved through Rivia Health is a balance that did not require a phone call, a paper statement, or manual follow-up from the billing team. With 8,756 payments captured through Rivia Health across the partnership, and an estimated 5 to 10 minutes saved per payment, West Texas Health recovered approximately 730 to 1,459 hours of billing staff time — time that was redirected to higher-value insurance claim work, denial management, and other revenue-driving activities.
For a 40-provider multi-specialty group generating a high volume of patient balances across dozens of departments, the compounding effect of this time savings is substantial. Rather than spending the day making collection calls, billing staff can focus on resolving insurance claim issues that have a larger financial impact per hour of effort.
Aged Balances Past 90 Days: ROI That Pays for Itself
One of the most compelling outcomes for any practice evaluating Rivia Health is what happens to balances that have already aged past the point where most solutions stop trying.
Going above and beyond.
Most patient payment platforms stop outreach at day 90. Rivia Health does not. Communication continues, with adjusted frequency and tone, because those balances still represent real revenue. For West Texas Health, 11% of all revenue captured through Rivia Health came from balances aged past 90 days — nearly one thousand individual bills that, under most workflows, would have either been sent to a collections agency at 35 to 45 percent cost or written off entirely.
The revenue captured on 90+ day balances alone represented more than 4.7 times the annual cost of the Rivia Health platform.
This means that even before counting the revenue captured on current balances, payment-plan installments, and staff time savings, Rivia Health delivered a strong positive return on investment from aged balances alone. Everything else Rivia Health captured across the partnership was incremental value on top of that. At a flat monthly subscription, West Texas Health knows exactly what they pay for Rivia Health each month. The math is unambiguous: aged balance recovery alone more than justified the investment several times over.
Small Balances Recovered: Revenue That Would Have Been Written Off
In most practices, patient balances under ten dollars are treated as a cost of doing business. They are too small to justify a phone call, a paper statement, or the cost of sending to collections. They get written off.
Across a 40-provider multi-specialty group handling primary-care visits, immunizations, lab draws, and specialty consultations, small residual balances represent a pool of revenue that simply disappears from the books.
Because Rivia Health’s automated outreach costs the same whether the balance is $5 or $5,000, every balance gets follow-up — including the ones that no staff member would ever have time to chase.
Over the partnership, Rivia Health captured payments on 495 balances under $10 for West Texas Health — each one resolved without any staff effort. These balances had been aging for an average of 48 days. Without automation, virtually every one of them would have been written off as uncollectable.
When you recover revenue at zero marginal staff cost, every dollar captured goes straight to the bottom line.
Beyond sub-$10 balances, Rivia Health captured payments on more than 2,317 balances under $25 — a category that rarely justifies the cost of a phone call or paper statement, but that Rivia Health resolves automatically and at scale.
Reduced Patient AR Days: 16 Days vs. 60-Day Industry Average
The speed at which patients pay directly affects a practice’s cash flow, financial planning, and ability to meet payroll and operating expenses without drawing on credit. The industry average for patient accounts receivable sits at approximately 60 days.
With Rivia Health, patients at West Texas Health paid in an average of 16 days — a ~73% reduction compared to the industry average, roughly six weeks faster. By reaching patients immediately when a balance enters billed status and making it simple to pay by text or email — no portal, no app, no account creation — Rivia Health compresses the time between billing and payment.
- Industry Average: 60 days
- West Texas Health’s average: 16 days
Rivia Health data shows 72% of West Texas Health’s paid bills clear within 15 days of first contact, and 82% within 30 days. Revenue that previously took two months to recognize is now arriving within a few weeks, reducing the need to carry receivables on the balance sheet and improving the practice’s financial position month over month.
For a multi-specialty practice with surgical, obstetric, and procedural volume alongside primary-care throughput, a 44-day reduction in patient AR days translates to a material improvement in working capital and reduces reliance on short-term financing to cover operating expenses.
Payment Flexibility Drives Resolution
Not every patient can pay in full. For a practice that manages surgical balances alongside routine visit copays, offering flexible payment options is essential to capturing revenue that would otherwise stall.
9% of patients who paid through Rivia Health used a flexible payment option. The practice currently has 82 patients on active payment plans covering 90 bills — balances that are being resolved over time rather than aging into collections.
Rivia Health makes it easy for patients to set up a payment plan directly from a text or email link, without calling the office. This self-service approach captures revenue from patients who are willing to pay but need a manageable schedule — and it does so without consuming staff time to coordinate.
Summary
Since partnering with Rivia Health in August 2023, West Texas Health has seen measurable, data-backed improvement across every dimension of patient revenue capture. Across nearly three years of partnership:
- 8,756 patient payments captured from 5,280 patients, resolving 8,620 bills — all without manual staff outreach
- 366,812 automated communications sent to 22,623 patients with a 1% text opt-out and 0% email unsubscribe rate
- 730 to 1,459 hours of billing staff time recovered and redirected to higher-value insurance claim work
- 11% of revenue captured came from balances past 90 days — by itself representing more than 4.7 times the annual platform cost
- 495 payments recovered on balances under ten dollars — revenue that would have been written off without automation
- Patient AR days reduced to 16 days, a ~73% improvement over the 60-day industry average
- 9% of paying patients used flexible payment plans, keeping larger balances on track instead of aging into collections
Rivia Health helps specialty practices capture more patient revenue, reduce staff burden, and get paid faster — with a flat monthly subscription and no disruption to your workflow.
To learn what Rivia Health can do for your practice, get a great A/R assessment.
