Investor Spotlight: Waystar

Tell us about Waystar’s roots to Louisville.  

Waystar is based on the merger of Navicure and ZirMed, the latter of which was founded in Louisville in 1999. Waystar maintains a headquarters on West Market Street in downtown Louisville and employs over 400 team members in the area. Waystar prioritizes giving back to the broader Louisville community through our Waystar Cares initiative; for example, in collaboration with non-profit partner 5 For the Fight, the Waystar team created and donated 725 chemo kits for patients at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville hospital.. 

What makes your company different from competitors? 

Waystar’s cloud-based platform streamlines the revenue cycle from end to end, helping to prevent costly errors that result in issues like wrongful claims denials and administrative waste. Waystar is set apart by its unified platform with a single log-in. With our agreement to acquire eSolutions, Waystar will be the first healthcare platform capable of processing payments from both private and government payers. With Medicare enrollment expected to hit 79 million by 2030, the need for integrated platforms is significant.

Waystar is at the forefront of AI adoption within their industry, leveraging the platform’s Hubble artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to streamline and automate billing and payments for healthcare providers—and create greater transparency for patients.

Unlike many competitors, Waystar offers expert, in-house client service and support.  

Have you had to pivot strategies over the years?

Since Waystar’s creation our vision and strategy hasn’t pivoted, rather it’s grown even broader. Our deliberate, strategic approach to M&A has positioned us to rapidly scale and enhance the technology needed to improve billing and payments for providers and consumers, tackling problems like rising spending, hospital financial issues, surprise medical bills and more. Over the past two years, in addition to our recent agreement to acquire eSolutions, Waystar has acquired Connance, a leading provider of predictive analytics solutions to give health systems insight into their revenue cycle; PARO, a financial assistance solution that uses predictive analytics to help hospitals better assess charity care; Digitize.AI, an AI firm that enables faster and smarter prior authorizations – one of the largest pain points for both providers and patients; and Recondo Technology, a pioneer of innovative revenue cycle automation solutions powered by advanced robotic process automation (RPA) and other artificial intelligence technology.

What makes Louisville a good home for your company?

As a hub of the medical and healthcare industries, as well as an emerging tech center, Louisville provides a deep hub of talent we are grateful to be able to tap into.

How have your partnerships with private equity investors helped in your overall growth strategy?

Waystar is in the business of driving healthcare payments forward, which means we want to offer customers the most cutting-edge technology available. Our investors include private equity firms EQT, CPPIB and Bain Capital, who contribute their deep healthcare and software expertise to help us propel this mission forward.

The investment from those partners has also provided us the capital to make a series of strategic acquisitions. Just last month, we agreed to acquire eSolutions, a revenue cycle technology company with unique Medicare-specific solutions, further building on our successful track record of acquiring and integrating leading technologies to strengthen our innovative product platform. Private equity investment has supported Waystar’s continued growth and unlocked innovation to solve the industry’s biggest challenges.

Anything else you’d like other HEN investors to know about Waystar?

Healthcare is a multi-trillion-dollar industry with a huge spending problem – complexities associated with administrative processes like billing and claim management waste $266 billion a year. With improved healthcare technology for providers, much of this multi-billion dollar issue could be redirected to patient care, ultimately driving down costs for American healthcare. COVID-19 and ongoing provider bankruptcies have highlighted the weaknesses in the healthcare system, making it more important than ever for healthcare organizations to embrace innovation.

Healthcare providers have been hard hit by COVID-19, and the challenges of the pandemic have demanded innovation. Since the onset of the crisis, Waystar has been committed to helping practices, hospitals and health systems navigate this unprecedented landscape. Through a free online resource center and series of informative webinars, we’ve shared with providers information about updated billing codes, expanded telehealth guidelines and best practices for managing remote revenue cycle teams.

In addition, we know that providers, who are already strapped for time and resources, are concerned about the upcoming Health and Human Services price transparency final rule, which goes into effect in 2021. Waystar is working with hospitals and practices to ease this process by providing clarification on the requirements and next steps, and technological support. We’re thankful for every single person working in healthcare through this extraordinarily challenging time and are dedicated to doing what we can to keep organizations running as smoothly as possible.