An enterprising young Wexford fintech business called Paytient has revealed a new digital payments platform that makes paying for treatments pain-free.
An enterprising young Wexford fintech business called Paytient has revealed a new digital payments platform that makes paying for treatments pain-free.
Paytient Payments has been providing digital payment services to dentists and other healthcare businesses for the last three years and is about to surpass €1m in payments processed via its platform.
“If a patient attends a clinic and is presented with a treatment plan, the clinic can immediately offer various payment solutions to help the patient move forward with treatment”
The business launched with an electronic SEPA direct debit product for weekly and monthly payment collection for dental treatment. With Paytient technology, clinics can send out an e-mandate request to patients, securely collecting their IBAN bank account number, against which they can charge an agreed payment plan.
A win-win solution for patients
“When the pandemic hit Paytient was perfectly positioned for growth, our business has seen year-on-year transaction growth of 1000pc, and is fast closing in on its first €1m of transactions processed. This is reflective of the most recent international payments Industry reports showing that digital payments have seen a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15pc to 20pc over the last few years.
“With the success of the Paytient Electronic Direct Debit product, clinics started asking for additional financial products to help them efficiently do business, including patient finance.”
Paytient Payments partners with regulated financial institutions to provide patient finance at point of sale in healthcare clinics. This has enabled a quicker decision-making process of three hours or less, as in most cases the financial institution already has a credit history on the patient.
“Paytient uses AI and chatbot processes to create a secure and robust communication triangle between the regulated lender, the patient and the healthcare business. The Paytient software sits in the background of the transaction, providing the technology, payment processing and marketing support,” said Gough.
Recent statistics have shown that over 50pc of people believe digital payment methods will replace cash payments within the next 10 years.
Through their own market research prior to launch, the founders of Paytient Payments observed that one of the biggest hurdles to spending on healthcare is the cost. With 60pc of interviewees saying that if they could spread the cost, they would spend more money on healthcare.
Paytient Payments believes it has provided a win-win solution for patients, clinics and Irish financial institutions.
Looking to the future
With a firm foundation of clinics and successful transactions in Ireland, Paytient Payments is actively looking to launch its healthcare payments platform in the UK and Europe by the end of 2021. Now that the company has proven its business model, it is actively looking to raise €250,000 to further grow the business.
Gough has more than 10 years’ experience working in the dental industry having started Ireland’s largest dental marketing agency and working with over 20pc of the dentists across the country, helping to get them to create an online presence. He founded Paytient at the NDRC in Dublin in 2018.
After helping dentists with their online presence, the next logical step was digital payments, as every other industry has already embraced them.
Yuri Davidovsky is co-founder and CTO of Paytient Payments. An Irish citizen based in Eastern Europe, he has spent over 20 years building software applications for businesses worldwide.
“A friend introduced us both in late 2019, when I was looking for a new CTO, and Yuri was interested in getting involved in a new project. After a short video conversation, we negotiated a deal and got busy progressing the Paytient Payments project,” Gough recalled.
According to Gough the dental market in Ireland is worth around €785m annually, with this money spent between the public and private market. He estimates the global dental market is worth in the region of €300bn per year, which is spent in around 500,000 dental clinics.
“We aggregate three key financial services for dental clinics into one easy to use platform: electronic direct debits, monthly membership plans and patient finance. This means that if a patient attends a clinic and is presented with a treatment plan, the clinic can immediately offer various payment solutions to help the patient move forward with treatment.”
“Our Electronic Direct Debit service enables a clinic to send an email to a patient, laying out the payment plan over a specific period of time. This email contains a request for the patients IBAN number, once this is entered into the form, the payment plan is set up and we start collecting money on the clinics behalf. This same product can be used with our fully integrated dental membership plans, helping clinics to collect a monthly fee for children, adult and family oral care.
“After several requests from our existing clients we sourced several finance providers in Ireland and launched Patient Finance in January 2021. This has been extremely popular from launch with a number of patient applications going through each week to our regulated finance providers. To date we have managed to achieve a 100pc approval success rate on dental finance loan applications, for either braces or other large treatment plans.”
Looking at the start-up ecosystem, Gough believes Ireland has all the right pieces in place. “I think for a small country we are well set up for startups, with the Local Enterprise Offices, work hubs around the country, and the NDRC, Dogpatch and other technology centres. Also due to foreign direct investment over the last 30 years, we are very fortunate to have many of the world’s leading technology and pharmaceutical companies on our doorstep, which is very unique.”
The South East of Ireland, he says, is ripe for growth. “Locally in the South East I would say that the ecosystem is getting stronger, there are many great indigenous technology companies already established and several groups trying to bring the community together. Having lived and worked in Dublin for over 10 years, being able to work a few minutes from home in The Hatch Lab, Gorey, has been particularly beneficial to my business and personal life in many ways. The lack of a three-hour commute each day, gives me more time for social activities with my children, friends and family.”
Gough says the future is bright for Paytient. “As we are fast approaching our first €1m in transactions processed, we believe it’s the right time to start looking for investment. We are now looking for €250,000 to further drive the development of our healthcare payments business in the UK and Europe. Having proven the idea and our products over the last three years, we believe we are ready to bring Paytient to the next level in terms of revenue and employment.”
