KLAS Research released its inaugural Revenue Cycle Management Suites 2026 report this week, and Waystar came out on top — earning an overall "A" satisfaction rating among RCM platform vendors. It's the first time KLAS has specifically studied "deep adopters": organizations running at least three distinct RCM solutions from a single vendor.

The headline number: 76–100% of interviewed Waystar clients reported lower cost-to-collect and improved collections performance. That's not a feature claim. That's verified client outcome data from an independent research firm that has been scoring healthcare IT vendors for 25 years.

For context on where Waystar sits in the market, read our full Waystar vendor deep dive — including where the platform still has gaps and what RCM teams evaluating it should pressure-test.

What KLAS Actually Measured

This report is different from a standard KLAS product score. The study is explicitly focused on deep platform adoption — organizations that have gone all-in on a single vendor ecosystem rather than assembling point solutions. KLAS calls these organizations "deep adopters."

Key findings from the report:

  • Waystar earned the highest overall "A" satisfaction score among all RCM suite vendors studied
  • 76–100% of interviewed clients reported lower cost-to-collect and improved collections performance
  • Vendor consolidation (57%) and stronger partnerships (57%) were the top two reasons organizations adopted integrated suites — cited equally
  • Waystar scored above market average for strategic partnership and continual suite improvement — the two dimensions most predictive of long-term client retention
  • Deep adopters broadly reported improved workflow efficiency and faster cash collections driven by integrated workflows
"Intelligent, connected platforms are shaping the future of the revenue cycle. Waystar's scale, differentiated proprietary data, and advanced AI capabilities connect workflows across the payment journey, so clients see more value with each solution they adopt." — Matt Hawkins, CEO, Waystar

Why the "Deep Adopter" Frame Matters

The RCM market has been fragmented for decades. Most health systems are running five, eight, sometimes a dozen different point solutions — eligibility from one vendor, prior auth from another, denial management from a third, patient payments from a fourth. The integration debt is enormous, and the manual reconciliation work between systems is where billing staff time disappears.

What KLAS is documenting here is the first systematic evidence that platform consolidation produces measurable financial outcomes — not just operational convenience. The fact that 76–100% of deep Waystar adopters reported lower cost-to-collect is meaningful because cost-to-collect is the hardest metric in RCM to move. It's a function of labor, denial rates, write-offs, and time-to-payment all at once.

If Waystar can demonstrate that number repeatedly across different provider types, the platform consolidation argument moves from a procurement preference to a financial obligation.

What Waystar Actually Processes

Context matters here. Waystar is not a boutique RCM tool. The company serves over 30,000 clients representing more than 1 million distinct providers — including 16 of 20 institutions on the U.S. News Best Hospitals list. Annually, Waystar processes over 7.5 billion healthcare payment transactions, covering roughly $2.4 trillion in gross claims and touching approximately 60% of U.S. patients.

That scale gives Waystar a proprietary data advantage that point-solution competitors simply can't replicate. When you process that volume of claims across that many payers, you build pattern recognition that informs denial prediction, prior auth likelihood, and payment velocity in ways a smaller platform can't match. The KLAS outcome data is likely a downstream effect of that data advantage being embedded in the workflow.

The Implication for RCM Teams Still Running Point Solutions

This report is going to accelerate consolidation conversations at health systems that have been deferring them. Here's why:

Finance leadership will read "76–100% reported lower cost-to-collect" and ask their VP of Revenue Cycle why they're running eight vendors. That question doesn't have a good answer once outcome data is in the room.

The counterargument — that best-of-breed point solutions outperform integrated platforms in individual categories — may still hold in specific niches. But the KLAS methodology specifically controls for that by studying organizations deep enough into the platform to realize integration benefits. If your denial rate is better with a standalone denial tool, but your cost-to-collect is higher because integration friction erodes efficiency everywhere else, the math doesn't work.

For teams currently evaluating Waystar or renegotiating their RCM vendor stack, this report gives procurement leadership independent validation that platform depth correlates with financial outcomes. Use it in budget conversations accordingly.

What to Watch

The KLAS report signals the beginning of a vendor consolidation cycle, not the end. Waystar earned the top rating here, but the report covers multiple vendors — and KLAS will update this study annually. The vendors who get acquired, built out, or lose accounts in the next 12–18 months will likely trace back to this kind of third-party outcome data becoming standard in enterprise RCM procurement.

Waystar's specific advantages to monitor going forward: AI-driven claim submission and denial prevention, their prior auth automation layer (acquired via Olive AI assets), and how well they integrate with major EHR platforms without introducing reconciliation debt. Those are the failure modes that flatten platform consolidation ROI — and they're the pressure points worth testing before you commit to depth.

The Bottom Line

An independent KLAS "A" rating with 76–100% of clients reporting lower cost-to-collect is the clearest third-party validation Waystar has had in years. It doesn't mean the platform is right for every organization — it means the platform depth argument now has outcome data behind it.

If you're three or more solutions deep with Waystar, this report validates your posture. If you're still running a fragmented stack, this is the data point your CFO is going to bring to the next RCM strategy review.

→ Read the full Waystar deep dive for an independent assessment of platform strengths, gaps, and what RCM teams should pressure-test before expanding their footprint.