Healthcare IT · Patient billing and payments
Collectly
A patient billing platform that sits between the electronic health record and the patient’s phone. It raised $29 million in 2023, says it has moved more than $1 billion in patient payments, and its own contract forbids customers from using it to collect debt.
The bills looked like spam
Sapphire Ventures opened its July 2023 note on leading Collectly’s Series A with a confession. “More than one of us here at Sapphire has almost been sent to collections because we didn’t pay a healthcare bill on time. In our defense, the bills looked like spam.”
That is the business in two sentences. The money is rarely missing because the patient refuses. It is missing because the statement looked like junk mail, went to an old address, or carried a number nobody could explain.
Collectly’s answer is a text message. A balance lands in the practice management system, the platform picks a channel and a moment, and the patient gets a link. Two taps and the bill is paid. A question gets a chat window instead of a phone tree.
Twenty cents on the dollar
The share of provider revenue owed by the patient has climbed for two decades. Collectly’s July 2026 release puts it at about 5 percent in 2010 and 20 percent now; its 2023 release said 35 percent, up from 5 percent in 2000. The direction is not in dispute; the denominators are.
What they collect is worse. Citing the accounting firm Crowe, FinTech Futures reported that providers collect around 55 percent of what they are owed. Collectly built its pitch on the gap: roughly $200 billion a year that never arrives. Chief executive Levon Brutyan told TechCrunch in 2023 that “Patient payments overall have to be about $480 billion, and considering that the patient responsibility grows at about 12% year over year, this huge number increases as well.”
Two founders and a pivot that matters
Brutyan and Maxim Mizotin started the company in 2017. Brutyan, a lawyer and MBA by training, runs it; Mizotin is chief technology officer. They went through Y Combinator that year.
What they stopped doing matters more. TechCrunch, which covered the company from the start, wrote that it had followed Collectly “since it launched in 2017 as a digital debt collection startup, and then again later that year after being part of Y Combinator, raising $1.9 million and refocusing on automating and streamlining billing operations as a patient financial engagement company.” That pivot decides which federal law applies.
Where the law actually lands
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act reaches third party debt collectors. A provider collecting its own patient balances is generally a first party creditor, outside the Act. A vendor that sends the provider’s statements sits in a third category, and where it lands depends on the contract and on whose name is on the message.
Collectly’s terms of service answer directly. Section 2.6 states that the “Company does not allow to use its products for first-party or third-party debt collection services,” and bars customers from putting the word Collectly into any patient-facing message. Section 2.5 puts the company on the vendor side: “Hence Customer understands Company is only a technological vendor, but not an initiator/maker of calls, texts, emails or push notifications.”
The patient sees the provider’s name, not Collectly’s. On the contract’s face this is no collection agency, and a CFPB complaint database search on September 23, 2026 found nothing against a company of that name. One press account cuts the other way: the Los Angeles Business Journal, writing up the Series A, said the platform sends bills “to collection agencies through a third-party entity” and called the company one that “streamlines debt collection for health care providers.”
The surrounding rules moved while Collectly grew. In 2022 and 2023 the three national credit bureaus voluntarily pulled paid medical collections, then all medical collections under $500, off credit reports, close to 70 percent of medical collection tradelines. The CFPB tried to finish the job by rule in January 2025. A federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas vacated it that July, with the Bureau itself joining the plaintiffs in asking him to. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia restrict the practice on their own.
From statements to agents
The Series A closed at $29 million, led by Sapphire Ventures, with Y Combinator, Wayfinder Ventures, Burst Capital, Cabra VC and Davidovs VC alongside. Sapphire partner Paul Levine took a board seat. Total raised: $34.1 million.
What followed is a march upstream. HITRUST i1 certification in May 2024. In June 2025, an AI agent named Billie answering billing questions over chat, text, email and voice. In October 2025, a second Billie reading eligibility files before the visit. In March 2026, the first acquisition: Pledge Health, another Y Combinator company building pre-service coverage agents, terms undisclosed. In July 2026, a Connection Hub listing on the Epic Showroom, the door to the large health systems Collectly had not been winning.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Status under the FDCPA | Terms 2.6 bars use of the product for first party or third party debt collection; 2.5 calls the company only a technological vendor, not the maker of the messages. Messages carry the provider’s name, so the FDCPA does not reach the platform. | Company contract |
| How one outlet described it | The Los Angeles Business Journal, Aug 7, 2023, said the platform “sends the bills to collection agencies through a third-party entity” and that the company “streamlines debt collection for health care providers.” | Differs from the contract |
| CFPB consumer complaints | A company name search on Sep 23, 2026 returned none against a company named Collectly. The database returns fuzzy matches such as AmeriCollect, a different firm. | Public record |
| State collector licensure | No license in the company’s name was located in the searches run for this profile, which is not proof of absence in every state registry. | Not found |
| SEC record | EDGAR returns no registrant named Collectly and no Form D: a $29 million round was announced with no Regulation D notice under this name. SAP SE lists “Collectly, Inc., Pasadena, CA, United States” in the Other Equity Investments exhibit of its Form 20-F, under holdings of at least 5 percent, three years running. | Public record |
| Certification and listings | HITRUST i1 Validated certification announced May 21, 2024, with a HITRUST executive quoted. SOC 2 aligned controls, PCI DSS Level 1 processing and HIPAA business associate status are company-stated. An athenahealth Marketplace partner since at least Jan 2023; in Connection Hub on the Epic Showroom as of Jul 2026. Both live listings require a login. | Partner and company |
| Named customers | Independently: Action Urgent Care, Retina Orange County and Nexus Healthcare Solutions, per the Los Angeles Business Journal. In case studies: CleanSlate Centers, Pyramid Healthcare, Medical Associates of Northwest Arkansas. The Epic release quotes a federally qualified health center anonymously, after a reissue correcting attribution. | Mixed |
Read plainly: the regulatory posture is documented and the complaint record is clean, which is what matters most here. The commercial claims are another matter. The headline numbers are the company’s own, repeated by outlets that got them from the company, with no external audit of the facility count or the payment volume. The Epic listing is the first credential a buyer need not take on trust.
What to watch
- Whether a Form D ever appears. A $29 million round with no Regulation D notice means a different exemption was used, or the notice sits under a name that does not search.
- Named enterprise health systems on the Epic side. A listing is a door, not a customer.
- State medical debt credit reporting laws. California now requires provider contracts with collectors to bar furnishing, changing what happens to a balance this platform cannot recover.
In their words
“Patient payments overall have to be about $480 billion, and considering that the patient responsibility grows at about 12% year over year, this huge number increases as well.”
Levon Brutyan, CEO, to TechCrunch, 2023 · Interview
“The healthcare payments system is broken. The process is outdated and as a result, is hurting providers and patients alike.”
Paul Levine, partner, Sapphire Ventures, Series A release, 2023 · Company release
“Company does not allow to use its products for first-party or third-party debt collection services.”
Collectly terms of service, section 2.6 · Company contract
“Hence Customer understands Company is only a technological vendor, but not an initiator/maker of calls, texts, emails or push notifications.”
Collectly terms of service, section 2.5 · Company contract
“A system of record knows what a patient owes. Billie, our AI billing agent, acts on it, engaging each patient, answering their questions, and guiding them to resolution, handling the majority of cases on its own while your team steps in only for the exceptions.”
Levon Brutyan, Epic Showroom release, July 2026 · Company release
“As it now recognizes, the Bureau was powerless to promulgate such a rule that flouts a federal statute by functionally rewriting it.”
Judge Sean D. Jordan, Eastern District of Texas, vacating the CFPB medical debt rule, July 2025 · Court
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordSEC EDGAR company search, full text search, and SAP SE Form 20-F exhibits
- Public recordConsumer complaint database, company name search
- Public recordCredit bureaus remove medical collections under $500
- IndependentFederal judge vacates CFPB medical debt rule
- IndependentKeeping medical debt out of credit reports
- IndependentPaying healthcare bills easier
- IndependentCollectly lands $29m Series A funding
- IndependentCollectly closes A round
- IndependentCollectly acquires Pledge Health
- InvestorWhy we are excited to lead Collectly’s Series A
- CompanyTerms of service, sections 2.5 and 2.6
- CompanySeries A, HITRUST i1, Billie, Pledge Health and Epic Showroom releases
- PartnerCleanSlate case study; security page, FAQ, Pyramid case study
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
