Ep. 135: Chris Hall – Patient Payments: Moving from Manual to Modern
Here’s what to expect on this week’s episode. 🎙️
Patient payments shouldn’t take months, three spreadsheets, and snail mail to show up.
This week on This Week in Surgery Centers, Chris Hall from Global Payments joins the show to talk integrated patient payments for ASCs — why a unified workflow reduces duplicate entry and human error, makes it easier for patients to pay by text and email, and gives finance teams clean end-of-day reporting without bouncing between systems.
We also cover the latest ASC news and healthcare headlines coming into the new year.
Be sure to check out the full episode on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform!
Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Alex Larralde: Hi everyone. Welcome back to this Week in Surgery Centers and Happy New Year to each and every one of you. In today’s episode, we’re kicking off a series on patient payments with a conversation that gets right to the point: how ASCs can modernize patient payment workflows without adding chaos for staff and friction for patients.
If your team is still piecing together a patchwork of portals, statements, phone calls, and manual reconciliations, you’re not alone and you’re not stuck. Our guest, Chris Hall, is a senior strategic partner manager at Global Payments, and we talk through what good actually looks like in 2026, integrated payments, easier ways for patients to pay by text or email, cleaner reporting, and the operational payoff of reducing the work that eats up so much of your day. It’s one of those topics that sounds simple until you are the one trying to make it work across real people and real workflows. So, we keep the conversation grounded in what teams are doing right now.
After that, I’ll take you through a short news segment with a few stories worth having on your radar this week. CMS’s latest moves on rural health transformation and why that could create new partnership opportunities for ASCs; a new study connecting pre-op stress to worse recovery outcomes in older adults, and the implications for pre-op workflows; a leadership change at Compass Surgical Partners; and why the South is increasingly being treated as the epicenter of ASC growth, especially as policy shifts like certificate-of-need reform, change the playing field.
I hope you enjoy today’s episode, and here’s what’s going on this week in surgery centers.
[00:02:06] Alex Larralde: Well, hello, Chris. Thanks so much for joining the podcast today. It’s great to have you on. Before we kick things off and talk about patient payments in ASCs, I would love to have you just give our listeners a quick introduction about you and your business.
[00:02:23] Chris Hall: Hi. Thank you for having me, Alex.
My name is Chris. I am from Global Payments Integrated. Global Payments is an industry leading, payment processing company. We’ve been a industry leader for close to two decades now, and we support all sizes of businesses from your small to medium sized businesses, all the way up to enterprise level.
[00:02:45] Alex Larralde: And today we’re gonna talk about patient payments, collecting patient payments, partnering with a payment processor, but to kick things off, let’s talk about the benefits to an ASC of having a patient payments tool and an integrated payment processor, like a partner to do that. Why should an ASC be thinking about this if they don’t already have one in.
[00:03:07] Chris Hall: Definitely, you know, so it’s super important these days to have integrated payments at your ASC locations.
The number one reason, in my opinion, would be the United Workflow. You know, the integrated payments just eliminate the need to do a lot of things manually that you may be doing today. That just increases efficiency, allows you to focus on what you do best at your ASCs. Staff can collect payments, verify balances, and post patient accounts all from the same platform that they already use every day.
This reduces duplicate data entry and significantly cuts down on cost, this also just cuts down on human error, you know, so you don’t need to worry about, uh, multiple data point, entry points. It’s all handled in one system, which again increases efficiency across the board.
[00:03:57] Alex Larralde: Absolutely. And in thinking about ASCs that you’ve worked with, what does it look like when they don’t have this in place? And you talked about it a little bit, but what are some of the pitfalls that you can run into if you are relying on manual processes to collect patient payments?
[00:04:13] Chris Hall: It could be a mess, you know, it could cause additional work for, you know, your employees themselves. Um, it can also prevent you from collecting that payment. Because the old traditional ways of, you know, mailing bills, you may have to, rely on, you know, snail mail, uh, which can take, months and you may not ever collect that payment.
Where, if you have an integrated payment processor where you can, send out an a bill by a simple text, you know, you can, uh, email over the payment link for that customer to pay. You can do that post or pre-op so that, again, you’re giving that customer many different ways that they may be paying for different things today, such as like a cell phone bill or paying for their cable service. You’re just modernizing the way that you do business. And that just makes it a lot easier for everyone involved. Not only your employees, but your patients. They’re going to appreciate the ease of making that payment so they don’t have to pick up the phone to call you to make that payment. I know personally that’s a lot easier of an experience for me, and I’m more apt to make that payment if it’s easy to make, I’m not going to chase down someone to give them my money. Uh, so again, you know, just making it more simple for everyone involved.
[00:05:25] Alex Larralde: Yeah. I definitely think there’s an expectation amongst consumers who live out in the real world, right? They’re buying things, they’re buying services, and making it easy to give you money is critical, in actually collecting that money, especially since so many younger people are not even carrying wallets, they’re just using their phone to pay for everything.
[00:05:43] Chris Hall: Exactly. And it just, again, it allows you to send out a reminder, uh, which I think is super important too. You have the ability to do so, but when you’re not using an integrated software, a lot of those just go wayside or you forget, or you have to rely on your employees to remember to send out those reminders. And again, this is all done by a simple click of the button or you can set up for this to be automated, which again, just increases everyone’s efficiency and increases your likelihood of getting paid.
[00:06:16] Alex Larralde: Yeah. Well, let’s talk a little bit about that. What is a patient payments tool? And we can just kind of talk broadly about what it looks like to move from that paper-based process to a more automated system. What is the experience for the person in the ASC?
[00:06:32] Chris Hall: Sure. So, you know, you still have your traditional payment options. And what I mean by that is your simple, credit card terminal where you can tap or swipe your card to pay or dip. But, with an integrated solution, you have additional ways to collect those payments. So again, consumer can pay with their phone, and they can do that different ways.
They can scan their phone; the ASC can actually send out a link via text or via email. And they can also have a patient portal where they can log into to make these payments. So again, by texting a link to pay, emailing a link to pay, you’re just figuring out different ways to attack and collect those payments.
You can also set up customer profiles, and you can set up, you know, different settings so that way, you know, after, seven days, 14 days, however you want to set it, it can send out reminders to collect those payments. So again, you’re just staying on patients that may have forgotten to pay or, just need a reminder that, hey, I have a bill due, that again, increases the likelihood of collecting that payment sooner and more efficiently.
[00:07:39] Alex Larralde: And I imagine that there’s also some backend benefits on the other side, right? From like a reconciliation and reporting perspective?
[00:07:47] Chris Hall: No, absolutely. The finance team is going to love this the most. Because again, all the payments return directly into, uh, the software. So the finance teams can run their end of day, end of month reports all with one single click versus going, you know, through multiple systems. A lot of non-integrated solutions are, doing a lot of things by, by hand, so the old paper and pen method, or they’re running in a separate accounting software.
This is all done in one single source, so that way you can, click of a button and you could run your reports, whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, et cetera. And the other thing, it really makes easier audits because everything is right there in front of you so you can, click and have all of your data that you’re looking for.
It eliminates the headache of downloading multiple spreadsheets and having to run multiple reports for, everything that’s handled right here in one single system.
[00:08:44] Alex Larralde: How much time is all of this saving across the board for each part of this process? What would you estimate? People are, are getting back to do other things.
[00:08:51] Chris Hall: It’s a tremendous time saver for me to put an actual amount on it would be very hard just because, when someone writes something down wrong or transfers over the wrong information because they were doing it manually, it can spend hours and hours trying to reconcile a single transaction, where this is all handled for you.
It’s just an, a tremendous time saver for everybody involved. Because, again. The patient is able to make that payment right there and then versus having to wait to make that payment. So again, you have the payments a lot faster too, as well as just, the overall time saving of not having to worry about running multiple softwares for accounting.
Because that’s one of the more common things that a lot of ASCs have done over the years without integrated payments is, uh, you know, separate accounting softwares or they have an accountant in-house, um, that’s doing everything on a completely different platform and system. And again, there’s a lot of headaches that are also saved by doing everything in one single software.
[00:10:00] Alex Larralde: I bet. So, if I’m an ASC that wants to overhaul this process, what kind of change management am I preparing for here? Is this something that can be done in a week? Is this something that takes months to do? I think that’s important for people listening to kind of understand.
Because if they are like, yeah, we need something like this. How, you know, how should they be preparing their teams, talking to their owners about what this project looks like?
[00:10:26] Chris Hall: Absolutely. I think that’s a loaded question too, because again, it depends on how many centers you have. Because obviously, you know, the more centers you have, the, you know, the more lift it may involve.
But it’s really a seamless transition because everything is automated. If you are a brand-new ASC that’s never accepted payments before, I would say that you can get up and running in a matter of days. If you’re an existing center with, multiple centers, I would say that you need to you give yourself a good month to actually make the transition and you know, go through the actual boarding and implementation process.
Now, I’m probably. A little, you could probably do it a lot faster too. But, you know, for a, you know, a good launch with, you know, a handful of locations, I would say you want to give yourself a little bit of time.
[00:11:14] Alex Larralde: Got it. That makes sense. Let me ask you this, if I’m an ASC shopping right, for a partner to, to do patient payments, what should I be looking for in terms of capabilities? Differentiators? What should be high on my list of priorities as I’m evaluating potential partners?
[00:11:35] Chris Hall: Sure. You know, you want to look for. Something that would make you know, lives easier. And, just with the way that the workforce is shifting, a lot of the younger generation just wants things automated and that’s what integrated payments provides.
Uh, you don’t have to worry about, hiring, um, an accountant for the back office to, or even a bill collector or something, people like that because again, it’s all handled for you. In an automated fashion. So, you don’t need to, uh, you know, the accounts payable team probably should block their ears here, but you know, it, it’s, it’s all done automated for you.
So that’s something that you definitely want to look for, is the ability to automate your payments. It allows consistency across multiple payment channels, if that makes sense. So, what I mean by that is all your payments, whether they’re coming in from the front desk or from an online portal, or from, one of the cell phones or emails, everything flows into the same system.
So, you want to look for that, just, you know, unified payments or consistency across multiple payment channels. Make sure that you’re looking for an integrated payment partner that is really focused on ASCs and supporting ASCs. Because they’re going to help figure that confusion out in a, make it a lot easier for you to do business and focus on, you know, providing the services that you do at your, you know, at your locations.
[00:13:06] Alex Larralde: Fantastic.
All right. Well, I have one final question for you, and it’s something that we ask our guests every week on the podcast, but what’s one thing that ASC leaders can do this week to improve their surgery centers?
[00:13:18] Chris Hall: Yeah, so what I would recommend is I would, either yourself or check with whoever’s reconciling your books. You know, look at the clock, have them time themselves, you time yourself. See how long that is taking you to do. Because that’s one of the most burdened things to do at ASCs. And see how long it’s taken, you know, you’re probably going to be surprised or shocked about how many manual hours that you’re putting in on a daily, weekly basis.
And when you multiply that by a month to a year, it’s going to really add up and knowing that if you were to add integrated payments, it’s done with a click of a button. So, it just it just increases efficiency. So that’s one thing I just recommend. See how much time you’re spending to reconcile your books on a daily basis or even a weekly basis and then quantify that and just know that if you were to look more into going the integrated road.
You’re going to save time tremendously, and I think that’s highly beneficial and something I would recommend all ASCs to do today if they’re not currently using an integrated software.
[00:14:20] Alex Larralde: I love that. Get yourself a cold, hard number so that you know how much time you can have back for more strategic work or really anything else that needs to be done. Because there’s countless things that need to be done around an ASC every day. So, this is a great way to save time and improve the patient experience for sure.
Chris, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to talk to you and have you on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, likewise. Thank you again for having me and I look forward to, uh, doing it again someday.
[00:14:53] Alex Larralde: The new year may have just begun, but the ASC industry hasn’t slowed down. Let’s jump into a few of the recent headlines and see what’s been going on over the last week.
CMS just took two big steps on rural health that could ripple into outpatient care. First, the agency formally created the Office of Rural Health Transformation, a new group inside of CMS that’s going to oversee their rural transformation work.
At the same time, CMS announced $50 billion in Rural Health Transformation Awards across all 50 states, paid out over five years. For 2026, states’ first-year awards averaged around $200 million, ranging from roughly 147 million to 281 million. Half the money is split evenly across the state, and the other half is based on things like rural need.
State policy actions and the projected impact of each state’s plan. Why should ASCs care? A lot of these plans focus on workforce tech modernization, telehealth infrastructure, and new care models designed to keep care local, which could create partnership opportunities for rural serving ASCs as states start implementing in FY 2026.
In a new study from the Duke University School of Medicine, researchers found that pre-surgery stress, even when it doesn’t feel severe to patients, can meaningfully worsen outcomes for older adults. The study published in the journal, Anesthesiology, links having more worries going into surgery with higher risk of post-op delirium, more uncontrolled pain, and longer hospital stays.
One of the most interesting takeaways wasn’t just that it was the intensity of stress that was felt, it was actually the number of stressors piling up for patients that best predicted worse outcomes.
More than four in 10 older adults scheduled for major surgery reported moderate to high distress, and the authors describe an overwhelmed patient profile where small stressors stack up and hinder recovery. The practical implication is that a quick pre-op distress screen and simple interventions like better communication, clearer prep and support around family or logistics, could be an underused lever to improve outcomes.
Compass Surgical Partners just announced a leadership change. It’s worth watching if you keep an eye on ASC development and management companies.
Mark Langston, who had been Compass’s Chief Development Officer, has just been named Chief Executive Officer, effective as of the announcement on January 5th. The outgoing CEO, DJ Hill, isn’t disappearing, per se. He’s staying closely involved as board chair, and the company frames this as a planned succession.
Compass positions the timing around what they call an accelerating shift toward ambulatory surgery, driven by reimbursement regulation, physician preferences, and patient demand. Langston’s quote is essentially that growth is ramping up across partnerships, and they’re eyeing new health system partnerships in 2026. So his focus as CEO will be building the teams and systems to scale in a disciplined way while keeping care strong at the local level.
They also highlight an emphasis on strengthening operational infrastructure, specifically putting real-time data and actionable information in the hands of a SC leaders to improve efficiency while maintaining clinical quality and physician engagement.
And finally, Becker’s is reporting that the South is becoming the epicenter of ASC growth and big operators are treating it less like a secondary market and more like the next strategic frontier.
One example is that Solara Surgical Partners says it plans to put more strategic focus on the Southeast, especially Florida, over the next five years, potentially shifting from mostly de novo growth toward more acquisitions as consolidation opportunities appear. The momentum is backed by both demand and deal-friendly conditions.
The piece notes that in 2025, more than 20 ASCs opened across the South with North Carolina seeing eight new centers, Texas four and Alabama and Mississippi three each. Regulation is also a big part of the story, especially certificate of need reform.
Georgia’s recent changes are highlighted as an example of how policy tweaks can quickly unlock development. While North Carolina still faces ongoing CON related friction, the bottom line, strong population and procedural demand, improving business dynamics and shifting CON policies are helping pool capital and health system partnerships, south.
And that wraps up today’s episode.
Be sure to check in next week for the next episode in our patient payment series. And if you found today’s episode helpful, be sure to leave us a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts to help others find us.
As always, thank you for spending a few minutes out of your week with us and I’ll see you again next time.