‘it made A Huge Difference’: Why Good Billing Drives Great Care

The call came on a Thursday, late in the month. A family member of a Traditions Management resident had an update about rent.

“Don’t worry about pulling the ACH,” the family member said. “I will take care of this now.”

The ability for family members to have more control over billing and payments through ALIS Pay has been a major benefit for the Carmel, Indiana-based Traditions, and not just for the bottom line. There is an emotional benefit for family members who know that they can take control of payments.

And if the emotional benefit for families is strong, the benefit for residents is momentous. Because of Traditions’ work with ALIS Pay from ALIS, residents are increasingly involved in managing their own billing. The team at Traditions has seen the difference it makes for them.

“You hear residents say, ‘I can’t even pick up my own laundry now,’ or that they’ve lost the ability to drive. That’s the big one,” says Kris Peters, Director of Revenue Cycle at Traditions Management. “So having that last bit of hold on the finances is a huge deal.”

Giving residents and family members more control over billing is a business win. It’s also uniquely tied to the experience that residents have in senior living. Better billing is better care.

Here’s why.

Billing Without the Bottleneck: How Traditions Scaled with ALIS

The year was 2018, and Traditions was ready for the next phase of its business.

Though the operator had just nine communities and was still working on QuickBooks, their growth was imminent, and they recognized that their current account software needed to be revisited.

“We definitely needed to have more streamlined platforms in place, and ALIS was the one that we chose,” Peters says. “It definitely made a huge difference in how we bill at the end of the month — and throughout the month for that matter.”

What ALIS Pay delivered for Traditions was an integrated payment system with zero friction. Payments such as rent go from each resident’s bank account through ALIS Pay and directly to the operator’s bank — or banks, as is so often the case. Operators using multiple banks across their portfolio often feel as if they just have one bank, because everything under ALIS runs seamlessly with no manual reconciliation required.

Operators can use ALIS Pay to process ACH payments, credit card payments or physical checks. For residents, relevant payment information is pushed to ALIS Connect, the family engagement portal where residents and their loved ones can manage payments, communication and health information.

For Traditions, the billing experience under ALIS instantly improved, transforming a manual process into a streamlined technological one. The system automatically generates and distributes every invoice and helps Traditions ensure that they are capturing all revenue by care level.

With the integrated billing and care plans, operators can have data-backed conversations with families and can see if residents are being under- or over-billed for care plans. When communities use nurse-call systems, they can track planned vs. unplanned care more accurately.

ALIS Pay touches nearly every part of the Traditions operation. Their kitchen uses ALIS for billing on food and equipment deliveries. The clinical team uses ALIS for billing for care plans and ADLs. The sales department uses ALIS for billing room leases. In short, everyone at Traditions interacts with ALIS. The system creates consistency across Traditions’ entire portfolio, including with its REIT owners, who lean on ALIS for compliance.

“We’re using ALIS to the fullest,” Peters says.

Inside the Numbers of Integrated Payments: How Traditions Gives Residents More Independence with ALIS 

There’s a longstanding aphorism in senior living: Your biggest competitor isn’t another operator. It’s a prospect’s own lifelong home.

When people prepare to move into a senior community, they are relinquishing control over their lives. That’s a big part of what makes so many Traditions residents go all-in on the ALIS system: they regain their control.

“A lot of our seniors are very tech-savvy,” Peters says. “So to be able to go in and pay their invoices via ALIS Connect, that’s been a huge thing.”

What ALIS has unlocked for Traditions is a better relationship between residents and their own families. The portal from ALIS gives residents and families what they want: control for residents, peace of mind for families. Peters recalls a resident who would always pay by check, but sometimes forgot to do so. Because she was set up on the ALIS portal with her family, she was covered.

“When she wants to go in and make the payment, she can, but the kids are still involved,” Peters says. “They can still make sure that Mom is making those payments timely, and that Mom is not accidentally writing out a $10,000 check. She said that she was very excited about ALIS Connect. I know the families are as well.”

The data backs it up. In May of 2026, Kris and the staff at Traditions processed over 3,300 payments. A process that used to take 90 seconds per resident can now take 90 seconds per community — a huge time savings for back-office staff.

That kind of resident empowerment brings more than clean, efficient billing. It creates happy, satisfied residents. And it’s been part of the strategic planning at Traditions that helps the company succeed when taking over communities, such as one business case where occupancy rose over four years from 56% to 95%.

In the end, billing not only helps with the operations, but it helps families understand what’s going on and how that translates to the cost of care. With ALIS, everything fits together.

“It saved so much time,” Peters says. “And it was accurate. Our billing process just changed dramatically.”

This Views article is sponsored by ALIS. To learn more, visit https://www.go-alis.com/.

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