Health Payment Systems, or HPS, a Milwaukee company offering a digital platform that consolidates a person's medical charges into one billing statement, is prepping to expand in the Upper Midwest and beyond after receiving a sizable growth investment from a health care investment fund.
SV Health Investors, which is operated from Boston and London, is buying an ownership stake in HPS. Terms of the investment size was not disclosed. The investment fund typically invests in companies with a minimum $5 million revenue.
HPS was previously majority owned by Caltius Equity Partners of Los Angeles, which took a controlling stake in the company in 2018. Hexagon Inc., a private investment company and limited partner of SV founded by Milwaukee businessman Scott Reiman and that has a Milwaukee office, is also investing in HPS.
Tom Policelli, the SV executive in residence, is joining HPS as CEO. Terry Rowinski, who served as president and CEO of HPS, will become the company’s president.
Policelli was most recently co-founder and CEO of Minuteman Health, a health maintenance organization in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He was also the co-founder and CEO of Averde Health and ran United Health Group’s consumer-directed health business.
In early 2020, Rowinski told the Milwaukee Business Journal the company had expanded into eastern Minnesota and western Michigan. At the time, the company had just under 50 employees with a network that included 124 hospital facilities and about 24,000 individual health care providers. As of early 2020, HPS had processed more than $4 billion in claims while handling over $260 million in member responsibility.
Through the platform, created more than a decade ago, HPS pays providers directly, meaning providers get paid faster, and HPS bills the patient, essentially taking on the responsibility of owning the communication between the consumer and the biller.
“I have known Terry and HPS for several years, and have been impressed from the start," Policelli said in a statement. "The company has built a strong solution that now can be delivered to more consumers, employers, and providers in its current and future markets."
SV's managing partner Tom Flynn and vice president Elizabeth Schwert are joining HPS' board as part of the investment.
