Case Study: Family Hospital Systems

Innovative Healthcare Membership Company Uses Accresa to Expand Services in Texas and Beyond

Healthcare the Way It Should Be

Founded in Austin, Texas by Isaac Higgins, FHS offers fixed-cost healthcare membership plans, a form of Direct Primary Care (DPC), with independent providers and organizations directly to individuals and employers. Members get unlimited access to primary care services offered by a local provider without the restrictions of traditional health insurance such as co-pays, deductibles, surprise billings, or restrictions on pre-existing health conditions.

FHS is both the best of the past and future of our healthcare system. By restoring the patient/doctor relationship of the past and uniting it with the innovation of memberships to standalone healthcare facilities, FHS is giving business owners and individuals the key to the way healthcare should be – transparent pricing, affordable fixed cost, and quality care delivered by providers who know their patients. 

Through their partnership with Accresa, FHS has scaled their DPC services to states outside of Texas, grown their provider network, and expanded their ability to work in the large employer market. 

4-5 FTE headcount saved on billing management

$120,000 saved by implementing Accresa instead of building a solution in-house

Expanded services beyond Texas for the first time 

The Challenges FHS Faced Before Accresa

In 2017, FHS was a start-up with big ambitions to shake up healthcare but had little funding to invest in technology. As their DPC offering gained traction and the attention of employers and providers across Texas, FHS realized a home-grown technology approach limited their potential to grow beyond Texas and the small business sector.

Difficulty Scaling

FHS lacked a central platform to manage the billing, administrative, enrollment, and network management components of their DPC program. Starting off, they used a combination of WordPress and Stripe to manage enrollments and billing. This prevented the company from scaling to larger employer groups or expanding outside of Texas.

Manual Processes

Another challenge was managing subscriptions and enrollments. Two-full time employees had dual roles in billing and membership support. At the time, they had no way of consolidating the billing for employers, which was an administrative burden on their clients. In order to scale, it would have taken 4-5 FTE just to manage the billing components.

Unrealistic Technology Investment

Technology costs were a big challenge in FHS’s early days. The company initially focused heavily on technology and invested $50,000 of their own money to build out a home-grown platform. In the end, it would have cost FHS approximately $120,000 to get the platform off the ground, with an additional PEPM admin cost once the platform was fully rolled out.

Why Accresa?

“The Accresa team is excellent at communicating and they always look for ways to improve the platform.” 
Isaac Higgins, CEO, Family Hospital Systems

In addition to Accresa, Cage Free Care evaluated another DPC platform, but it lacked the capabilities to service larger employers with multiple providers working together under one software. This would have prevented Cage Free Care from scaling their DPC network for multi-location employer groups. 

Accresa enabled Cage Free Care to grow their network of physicians and clinics with ease utilizing Network Affiliation Manager, a feature unique to Accresa that seamlessly connects multiple networks and providers while delivering a uniform program offering to employees regardless of the provider they choose or their geographic location. 

We are a bootstrap company with little funding, and software was never one of our core focuses. We continue to focus on developing our network with providers and the Accresa solution allowed us to skip the need to invest heavily in technology,” said Higgins. 

Accresa delivered the end-to-end solution that would allow Cage Free Care to grow their DPC membership program. Additionally, Higgins appreciates how attentive the Accresa team is to their needs. “The implementation team was very understanding of our needs as an organization. They have been fantastic to work with and are very receptive to our feedback.”

Results

“The Accresa platform has allowed us to scale our network to other states outside of Texas and work with more healthcare providers. ”

FHS currently utilizes Accresa to manage their healthcare memberships for individuals and employers, including eligibility tracking, billing, enrollments, terminations, reporting, building provider networks, and more. 

Over the past year, FHS has experienced tremendous growth through a partnership with Family Hospital Systems, a locally owned and operated system of freestanding emergency rooms and hospitals offering primary and emergency care to Texas patients. FHS also has plans to extend their services nationwide with Accresa in the near future. Since implementing Accresa, FHS has been able to: 

  • Work with multiple independent providers to offer a unified Direct Primary Care solution to large employer groups 
  • Implement and service a Direct Primary Care solution for larger employers 
  • Expand beyond Texas into new markets and partnerships with more healthcare practices 
  • Manage the entire membership journey for employers and individuals with minimal effort

The Numbers: 

•  4-5 FTE headcount saved on billing management 

 $120,000 saved by implementing Accresa instead of building a solution in-house

Accresa is doing all the right things in building a more sustainable healthcare system. By providing a technology solution that connects providers and employers together, it solves a problem that has long existed in healthcare.”

To learn more about FHS, visit familyhospitalsystems.com

Interested in learning more about the Accresa? Contact our team today at hello@accresa.com