Barnard Crespi, Co-CEO of Datatel, discusses how healthcare organizations can proactively preserve patient revenue so unpaid balances don't become collection problems.
Toronto, Canada (PRUnderground) September 29th, 2026
Datatel has released a new executive video featuring Co-CEO Barnard Crespi that challenges healthcare leaders to reconsider how they approach patient receivables.
The video, "Why Are We Waiting Until Revenue Becomes a Problem?", examines a common pattern in patient revenue. A bill is issued, payment does not immediately follow, time passes, additional follow-up becomes necessary, and the account becomes progressively older. As that unpaid balance ages, more people, processes and potentially outside organizations may become involved in recovering the revenue.
Crespi argues that this creates an important leadership question: Why allow revenue to travel so far through the collection process before giving it greater attention?
"The conversation needs to shift from revenue recovery to revenue preservation," said Barnard Crespi, Co-CEO of Datatel. "Recovery is what happens after the problem exists. Preservation is about preventing the problem from becoming larger in the first place."
Crespi encourages healthcare organizations to examine what happens immediately after a patient bill is issued. This includes how consistently patients are engaged, how easily they can respond, what happens when an initial communication receives no response, and whether follow-up depends heavily on available staff time.
Crespi also highlights the financial environment facing patients. Patient balances compete with mortgages, credit cards, utilities, insurance and other medical expenses. When a balance remains unattended for extended periods, the organization is competing with every other entity seeking payment from that individual.
Rather than simply adopting a more aggressive revenue collection approach, healthcare organizations are encouraged to explore more conciliatory methods that involve earlier engagement, clearer opportunities to act and appropriate automation of routine processes, all of which can help keep revenue moving while allowing staff to focus on accounts that require human attention.
For healthcare executives, the broader issue extends beyond collections. The opportunity is to keep more revenue from becoming a collection problem in the first place.
Source :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isb3GyWPpjM
Direct Links:
> Understanding How Money Moves™ Executive Session > https://www.datatel-systems.com/money-flow-session/
About Datatel
Datatel is a payment technology and advisory company that helps organizations modernize how they securely accept and manage payments. For more than 25 years, Datatel has specialized in secure payment infrastructure, IVR payment technology, and PCI compliance advisory services that reduce the risks associated with handling payment card data. As more organizations introduce AI technologies into customer interactions, Datatel helps ensure payment transactions remain isolated, secure, and compliant by protecting Voice AI and other automated systems from directly handling sensitive cardholder data. Datatel's solutions are used by healthcare providers, utilities, financial services organizations, and government agencies across North America.
