Hospitals collected 24.8% of patient payments at the point of service in the first quarter of 2026, up from 22.7% a year earlier, according to Kodiak Solutions' June 2026 benchmarking report. The same report put the yield on the patient portion of claims after insurance at 30.1%, so most patient dollars still arrive after the visit. These are hospital figures, not physician office figures, but the payer pattern and the deductible data behind them reach every front desk.
What Kodiak measured in the first quarter of 2026
Kodiak Solutions released the data on June 2, 2026, drawn from its Revenue Cycle Analytics platform. The release does not state how many hospitals or claims sit in the sample. Three measures changed little between the first quarters of 2025 and 2026.
| Measure | Q1 2025 | Q1 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Point-of-service collections, share of patient payments | 22.7% | 24.8% |
| Patient responsibility, share of allowable claim amounts | 23.3% | 23.0% |
| Collection yield, share of self-pay portion after insurance | 30.6% | 30.1% |
Source: Kodiak Solutions release, June 2, 2026. The release gives the patient responsibility figure without naming a quarter.
Point-of-service collections gained 2.1 percentage points. Total yield on the patient portion slipped 0.5 points, and Kodiak calls it flat. Patients owed a slightly smaller share of each claim, 23.0% against 23.3%. Collecting more at the desk did not raise the total collected.
HFMA reported a monthly Kodiak figure for February 2026 as well: point-of-service cash collections of 24.4% of total patient payments, a 0.8% year-over-year improvement.
Point-of-service cash collections by payer type
HFMA senior editor Paul Barr published a payer breakdown from the Kodiak data on June 8, 2026. The article does not state the sample size or the base for each percentage.
| Payer type | Point-of-service cash collections |
|---|---|
| Traditional Medicaid | 50.2% |
| Medicare Advantage | 27.6% |
| Commercial and all managed care | 24.7% |
| Medicaid managed care | 23.0% |
| Traditional Medicare | 15.0% |
Source: HFMA, "Patient POS collections pose a growing problem for RCM departments," June 8, 2026, citing Kodiak Solutions.
The spread is wide. Traditional Medicaid at 50.2% is 3.3 times traditional Medicare at 15.0%, a gap of 35.2 points. Three of the five groups fall between 23.0% and 27.6%, a range of 4.6 points. The article gives no reason for the Medicaid and Medicare figures, so a practice should check its own payer mix before it reads them as a target.
What health systems say about pre-service payment
HFMA and PayZen surveyed 205 revenue cycle leaders and HFMA's Rich Daly reported the results on May 22, 2026. Pre-service collections averaged 21.0% of self-pay collections in 2026, up from 16.0% in 2025. The share of total patient billings collected rose from 24.0% to 31.0%.
Payment plans moved the other way. The share of patient collections tied up in open payment plans fell from 30.0% in 2025 to 23.0% in 2026. Systems that use a third-party vendor for extended-term plans rose from 38.0% to 43.8%.
Estimate-stage policy changed more than the money did. Organizations that encourage payment, require payment, or collect a payment method on file during the estimate rose from 81.3% in 2025 to 91.5% in 2026. Only 17.1% require up-front payment, and 68.0% of those still go ahead with care when the patient does not pay.
The article also cites an Experian Health survey, with no sample size stated. Four in 10 patients said they would be more likely to cancel or postpone care without an accurate estimate. Six in 10 said they would feel more confident paying if offered a plan that fit their finances.
Deductibles set the size of the balance
The balance at the desk depends on the plan. KFF's 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey drew on 1,862 firms with 10 or more workers, surveyed from January 27 to July 23, 2025, with a 13.0% response rate. The average single-coverage deductible was $1,886. It is up 17.0% over five years and 43.0% over ten. A 17.0% rise puts the figure from five years ago near $1,612, a difference of about $274 per covered worker.
Firm size matters. Workers at firms with 10 to 199 employees averaged a $2,631 deductible, against $1,670 at larger firms. KFF found 53.0% of covered workers at small firms face a deductible of $2,000 or more, against 34.0% of all covered workers and 28.0% at larger firms.
Out-of-pocket maximums set the ceiling on what a patient can owe in a year. Among covered workers with a single-coverage maximum, 12.0% have one of $2,000 or less and 21.0% have one above $6,000.
Reading the numbers at a practice front desk
A practice cannot copy a hospital benchmark, but it can measure the same split. The Kodiak table shows that point-of-service collection depends on who the payer is. A single practice-wide percentage hides a 35.2-point spread between payer groups, and a practice with a heavy traditional Medicare mix will sit near 15.0% for reasons unrelated to staff effort.
The PayZen and HFMA numbers show where policy sits today. Of the systems surveyed, 91.5% ask for something at the estimate stage, yet only 17.1% require payment. A practice that tracks collections by payer class each month can see whether a change in the script moves the number. Kodiak's national figure moved 2.1 points in a year, so a practice should expect small monthly changes and compare quarters.
In Kodiak's first quarter of 2026 data, 75.2% of patient payments still came after the visit.
Sources
- Kodiak Solutions, Hospitals Improve Point-of-Service Financial Engagement With Patients (Business Wire release, republished), June 2, 2026
- HFMA, Patient POS collections pose a growing problem for RCM departments, June 8, 2026
- HFMA, Health systems boost front-end collections, May 22, 2026
- KFF, 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey, October 22, 2025
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