Healthcare Fiscal Management, Inc. (HFI), the developer of maxRTE, is a long-standing player in the healthcare financial technology sector. Founded in 1997, the company has spent over two decades refining its insurance verification and discovery logic. The company transitioned into a high-growth phase in late 2021 when it was acquired through a search fund model, bringing in new leadership and strategic investment. Today, maxRTE is positioned as a premier niche solution in the Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) market, specifically focusing on the 'front-end' of the cycle to prevent denials before they happen. The company is headquartered in Burnsville, Minnesota, and maintains a lean, highly specialized team of approximately 16-50 employees who provide white-glove support to hospitals, clinics, and billing services across the United States. Their market position is defined by their unique flat-fee value proposition and their high-performing proprietary algorithm that consistently out-identifies traditional clearinghouse solutions.
The company was originally founded in 1997 as Healthcare Fiscal Management, Inc. (HFI). For its first two decades, it operated as a specialist service provider helping healthcare facilities manage uncompensated care through manual and semi-automated eligibility checks. In December 2021, the company underwent a significant transformation when it was acquired by Carla Larin and Jake Braun, backed by a consortium of search fund investors. Carla Larin, a Stanford MBA and former consultant at Oliver Wyman and Goldman Sachs, took the helm as CEO with a vision to modernize the platform into an automation-first SaaS product. This acquisition marked the company's evolution from a service-oriented firm to a technology-driven RCM powerhouse, leveraging the search fund model's unique approach to 'entrepreneurship through acquisition' to revitalize the product's market presence.
maxRTE is a private equity-backed company that has successfully navigated multiple financing stages, culminating in its acquisition by search fund investors in 2021. Notable institutional investors include Anacapa Partners, Search Fund Partners, and Hunter Search Capital. Other participants in the funding rounds include Endurance Search Partners, Gelman Brothers, and Saltoun Capital Partners. This funding has been strategically utilized to transition the platform into a cloud-native SaaS model, develop advanced AI-driven discovery features, and build out its integration library for major EHR vendors like Epic. The backing of these firms, which specialize in the 'Search Fund' asset class, highlights the company's strong fundamentals and its potential for scalable growth within the fragmented healthcare IT landscape.
The maxRTE product suite consists of three core interconnected modules designed to optimize revenue recovery. 1) Insurance Discovery: This is the flagship offering that uses a proprietary algorithm to search for unknown coverage for self-pay accounts, identifying primary, secondary, and tertiary payers that patients may not have reported. 2) Real-Time Eligibility: An instant verification tool that provides up-to-the-minute benefit data (co-pays, deductibles) at the point of care. 3) Prior Authorizations: A workflow automation tool that monitors payer requirements and automates the status-checking process for surgical and elective procedures. These offerings are available through a web portal for manual use or can be fully embedded into the provider's EHR via API, providing a flexible architecture that accommodates various clinical workflows.
Historically focused on the Midwestern United States, maxRTE has aggressively expanded its geographic and market footprint following its 2021 leadership change. The company now serves a diverse client base nationwide, ranging from 25-bed Critical Access Hospitals in the rural South to large urban health systems like Premier Health in Ohio. A significant part of their expansion strategy involves deeper integration with the Epic Showroom and the athenahealth Marketplace, allowing them to tap into the massive user bases of these EHR giants. While primarily US-focused due to the complexities of the American payer system, the company has focused its recent growth efforts on 'Early-Out' collections agencies and large RCM billing services that require high-volume, automated insurance scrubbing across multiple states.
In the last 12-18 months, maxRTE has introduced several high-impact features to stay ahead of RCM trends. A major addition is the 'Notification of Admission' (NOA) automation, which helps hospitals comply with strict 24-48 hour payer deadlines for inpatient admissions, thereby preventing costly denials. They have also enhanced their Prior Authorization module with AI-driven alerts that notify staff of status changes in real-time. Furthermore, the company has refined its 'Medicare MBI Lookup' tool to function seamlessly without social security numbers, and added deeper 'retro-eligibility' logic that allows for look-back periods to capture Medicaid approvals that occur post-discharge. These updates reflect a strategic move toward full-cycle automation beyond simple eligibility checks.
The culture at maxRTE is defined by a blend of deep industry expertise and a modern, operator-led startup mentality. Under the leadership of Carla Larin, the company emphasizes 'white-glove' customer service, where every client is assigned a specialist team rather than a generic support ticket system. This approach is rooted in the company's history as a service firm, but it is now paired with a high-performance, metrics-driven environment characteristic of Stanford-led search fund acquisitions. The company values transparency, both in its internal operations and its external pricing, and fosters an environment where operational excellence and technical innovation are prioritized to solve the real-world financial pressures of healthcare providers.
maxRTE maintains an active presence in the healthcare revenue cycle community through a mix of digital resources and professional partnerships. The company frequently hosts webinars and publishes white papers on topics like 'Combating Uncompensated Care' and 'Optimizing Front-End Workflows.' They are active participants in industry conferences such as HIMSS and HFMA (Healthcare Financial Management Association). Their digital ecosystem includes a comprehensive 'Resource Center' with ROI calculators, case studies, and a blog dedicated to navigating the ever-changing landscape of payer rules. By partnering with industry veterans like Mark Neaman (former CEO of NorthShore University HealthSystem), they bridge the gap between software development and executive healthcare leadership.
maxRTE
By Healthcare Fiscal Management, Inc. (maxRTE)
