In the U.S., healthcare spending is expected to go over $6.8 trillion by 2030. A big part of this money flows through complicated revenue cycle management (RCM). This includes patient registration, insurance checks, medical coding, claim submission, payment posting, and reconciliation. These tasks usually take a lot of work and can have mistakes or delays.
Healthcare call centers often face these problems:
To fix these problems, technology is needed that can handle many calls fast and still keep patient privacy and care in mind. AI-driven voice agents offer one solution.
Cedar created Kora, an AI voice agent made for health billing questions. It was developed with Twilio and trained using Cedar’s own healthcare billing data. Kora plans to handle 30% of inbound patient billing calls by the end of 2025.
Kora can do more than old interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Many IVRs annoy patients by making them press buttons and follow fixed scripts. Kora listens to natural speech, understands in real time, answers like a conversation, and notices feelings like frustration or confusion.
Key features of Kora include:
Using Twilio’s ConversationRelay technology, Kora recognizes speech in real time, handles interruptions, and uses natural voice to make talks feel human and calm for patients.
ApolloMD, a medical group linked to 138 hospitals and serving over 4 million patient visits each year, started using Kora early. Dr. Yogin Patel, ApolloMD’s CEO, says Kora has cut down patient billing calls. This lets support staff spend more time on tricky cases that need human care.
Some benefits of this change are:
In a healthcare system with tight budgets and fewer workers, an AI voice agent that lowers the need for large call centers while keeping good support is useful.
AI is also being used in billing workflows to make financial tasks faster and easier.
Here are some key AI workflow automation areas:
For U.S. medical practices and hospitals, using AI in billing cuts manual errors, speeds claim processing by about 30%, and lowers administrative work by around 40%.
Handling patient financial data requires following strict privacy rules. Cedar’s Kora and similar AI tools are built to meet HIPAA compliance. This means they keep data safe during sending, storing, and processing.
Providers using AI voice agents must ensure the technology follows federal and state privacy laws. It should have protections like encryption, access controls, and audit logs to keep patient information secure.
AI voice agents in healthcare billing use several advanced technologies:
These features let voice agents work as first support in provider call centers. They can handle many calls without losing quality or availability.
Healthcare providers in the U.S. are spending more on AI to cut costs, improve financial results, and serve patients better. AI voice agents like Kora are already handling about 30% of patient billing calls. They offer 24-hour, multilingual, and caring support.
In the future, AI may act like a “digital helper” to guide patients through the often confusing healthcare financial process. AI could offer financial advice, check insurance eligibility, and help with complex payment plans. At the same time, AI will give call center staff better information to handle tough calls more efficiently.
Using AI well means training staff, connecting AI smoothly with current electronic health record (EHR) and billing systems, and keeping an eye on how well AI works and how satisfied patients are.
By using AI voice agents and automating billing tasks, U.S. healthcare providers can reduce extra work, run operations better, and give patients clearer financial support. These tools help medical administrators, owners, and IT managers deal with everyday challenges and improve healthcare billing services.
Kora is an AI voice agent purpose-built for healthcare billing, developed by Cedar in collaboration with Twilio. It automates patient billing calls to help providers resolve billing inquiries instantly, reducing manual workload and costs.
Kora autonomously addresses common billing inquiries during the first interaction, explaining charges clearly, identifying payment options, and connecting patients with financial assistance, thereby improving call resolution quality and speed.
Kora uses natural language understanding and Twilio’s ConversationRelay service, allowing for real-time streaming, speech recognition, interruption handling, and empathetic, conversational responses similar to a human agent.
Kora is designed with HIPAA privacy and security safeguards ensuring patient data protection. It maintains compliance from the ground up to securely handle sensitive healthcare billing information.
Kora is projected to automate 30% of inbound billing calls by 2025, reducing reliance on call center staff, lowering labor costs, and enabling staff to focus on complex patient interactions requiring a human touch.
Kora provides empathetic, real-time support 24/7 without hold times, supports multiple languages, detects patient sentiment and tone, and escalates to human agents when necessary, enhancing patient experience.
Kora helps mitigate rising labor costs, staffing shortages, and the pressure to improve patient experience by automating billing inquiries, reducing call volumes, and improving access to financial support outside business hours.
Kora leverages Cedar’s healthcare ecosystem and real-time data integrations to offer personalized financial pathways, intelligently responding to individual patient billing questions and needs with empathy.
Cedar emphasizes real, measurable outcomes by combining deep revenue cycle expertise with AI designed for privacy, safety, and empathy, creating trust and efficiency that patients and providers rely on.
By automating routine billing inquiries and call handling, Kora reduces operational overhead, cuts costs, improves collection rates, and allows revenue cycle teams to allocate resources efficiently toward complex cases.
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