At HIMSS 2026, the conversation around AI was everywhere — but some of the most practical applications had less to do with diagnosis or clinical workflows and more to do with a problem nearly every patient knows firsthand: understanding, and affording, the cost of care. In episode 9 of Doceree Dialogue – Chapter HIMSS, Andrea Zaczyk, Vice President of Marketing at RevSpring, joined host Vijay Adapala, Chief Business Development Officer at Doceree, to discuss why the patient financial experience remains so difficult, what real transparency requires, and how AI can make paying for care feel more human — not less.
RevSpring approaches that challenge end to end. The company helps healthcare organizations guide patients from the very first search for care all the way through final payment, using communications and payment tools designed to make every step easier to understand and act on.
Zaczyk's path into healthcare wasn't a straight line. She began her marketing career in metal finishing — and quickly discovered she needed her work to mean something more.
"I realized as a marketer that I needed purpose attached to what I was marketing. I couldn't market widgets," she said.
In 2013, she moved into healthcare IT through a workforce management business, starting in nurse staffing and scheduling. From there she moved into revenue cycle, then spent time supporting an EHR on the clinical side, before landing at RevSpring, where she now focuses on patient engagement. It's an arc that has taken her across nearly every corner of how a healthcare organization actually runs — and, increasingly, how patients experience it.
At the heart of RevSpring's work is a belief that the financial journey should be designed as carefully as the clinical one.
"RevSpring really helps from that first search all the way through final payment," Zaczyk explained.
That means supporting patients across the entire lifecycle — intake, scheduling, appointment reminders, check-in, and, when the time comes, paying the bill — through channels including text, email, IVR, and print statements. What ties it together is personalization. Using advanced scoring and analytics, the company tailors both the communications and the payment options to each individual.
For one patient, that might mean a payment plan of $100 a month against a $1,000 balance; for another, paying that balance in full makes more sense. The goal, Zaczyk says, is to meet people where they are.
"We make sure we're meeting patients where they are, in the workflow that makes sense for them," she said.
The scale of the challenge came through clearly in RevSpring's own research. In a recent survey of more than 2,000 consumers, the overwhelming majority said the experience was still a struggle.
"94% of them said the healthcare journey still felt hard," Zaczyk said.
Much of that difficulty, she explains, comes down to transparency — or the lack of it. When patients don't understand what care will cost up front, the consequences are real: many will scale back the care they seek, or disengage from it entirely.
"Patients will reduce the amount of care they seek, or completely disengage, if they don't have that transparency up front," she said.
The fix, she argues, is to carry transparency all the way through — from an early estimate, to a clear picture of actual costs, to a concrete understanding of how a patient can afford to proceed.
Transparency and personalization aren't just better for patients; they're better for the organizations serving them. Many providers, Zaczyk notes, rely on default billing policies applied across the board. RevSpring's approach is to study each organization's population — how likely patients are to pay, and how they prefer to engage, whether digitally, through paper statements, or somewhere in between — and tailor communications and payment policies accordingly.
The results, she says, are measurable.
"When we tailor both the communications and the payment options to their population, we typically see a minimum 3% increase in yield — sometimes double digits," she said.
In other words, making it easier for patients to understand and pay for care directly strengthens the financial health of the practice or health system.
Like nearly every exhibitor at HIMSS, RevSpring is thinking hard about AI — but Zaczyk is clear that the technology should serve the experience, not dominate it.
"When we think about AI, it's not a layer on top. It's a tool that allows us to help organizations be more effective, more precise, more personalized, and more convenient," she said.
Given the sensitivity of financial and health data, she stresses using AI responsibly — leaning on it only where it genuinely helps the patient, the payment, or the organization. One of the most compelling examples she offers is decidedly human: a front-desk staff member navigating a delicate conversation with a patient anxious about a large balance. In that moment, AI can surface real-time information to help the staff member guide the patient, sensitively and effectively, toward a workable path to payment.
"It's about how we use AI to enhance that human-to-human interaction," she said — a tool working quietly in the background to help people be better versions of themselves.
That restraint matters, she adds, because trust in AI still has to be earned. Notably, RevSpring's research found patients are most comfortable with AI when it comes to billing — making it a natural place to let the technology smooth the experience without ever feeling forced.
Asked what healthcare leaders should prioritize over the next five years, Zaczyk returned to the theme that ran through the entire conversation: price transparency.
"Without it — and without an understanding of how they're going to afford care — we really can't get to optimal access," she said.
The stakes, she notes, are only rising. As more financial responsibility shifts onto patients through self-pay, and as legislative changes and pressures on rural health reshape the landscape, making care both affordable and approachable becomes essential — not only for patients, but for the sustainability of the organizations that serve them. The path forward, in Zaczyk's view, begins with transparency around cost and the personalization that helps each patient understand how to move ahead with the care they need.