Becker's Hospital Review

Find out more. Call 866.817.5738 or visit us online at athenahealth.com Now the hospital doesn't have to handle so many administrative details. "athenahealth takes care of all the claims they bill themselves," said Christensen. "They even follow up on denials. We have some involvement, because we want to know what types of denials we're seeing, but we don't have to keep track of the claims. That gives our staff a chance to focus on other tasks." Hospital billing staff appreciated how intuitive the software is. Christensen said, "If there is an issue, you'll see a hyperlink that takes you exactly where you need to go to resolve it. That's my favorite thing about athenaCollector. The billing software works great." Intelligent Support "athenahealth has been such a breath of fresh air," said Schumann. "We came from systems where the product never developed all that much, or there were a lot of bugs in the system." Now, Schumann explained, "Improvements to the system are happening on a daily, monthly, and weekly basis, and the changes that are newly installed are relatively bug-free. It's great." In addition to constantly evolving software that keeps the hospital on top of payer and industry changes, athenahealth takes care of billing tasks such as claim tracking and follow up. "When a claim gets billed, an athenahealth team member will follow up until it's paid," said Christensen. "Initially hearing that, when we toured the service center, it seemed like a pipe dream. But it is true. athenahealth really does follow up on every claim they release out of their system. Until each one gets paid." The hospital appreciates athenahealth's prompt customer service. "I attribute a lot of our success with athenaCollector to their CSC [customer service center] support," said Christensen. "They are amazing. They deserve a lot of credit for where we're at today." The hospital also benefits from being part of a large network of other hospitals and medical groups. "Once you enter something into athenahealth's system, such as a new insurance package, that becomes available to every athenahealth client throughout the country," said Christensen. "And we have seen the benefits of what other clients are inputting into the system. That's awesome. We are one big team. You never feel that on any other operating system." Meaningful, Robust Reporting One of the favorite features of athenaCollector for Hospitals & Health Systems is the on-demand reporting. "The reporting in athenaCollector is very robust," said Schumann. "It's absolutely outstanding compared to reporting in other programs. I have to provide about 20 pieces of key data every morning. It used to take me an hour, but now takes me 15 minutes." They are particularly pleased with their ability to create and save customized reports. "You can define your own reports, save them, and run them from month to month," said Schumann. "There are a lot of different parameters and filters to include. So you're not limited to a set of canned reports from the vendor that you cannot manipulate. You can build your own reports that are meaningful to the hospital." Much More to Come Both Schumann and Christensen expect continued improvements in revenue and efficiency as they gain more experience with athenaCollector for Hospitals & Health Systems. "We are still new at this. We're still climbing a learning curve. I can only imagine what it's going to be like six months or a year from now," said Christensen. Schumann added, "We've been using revenue cycle solutions since about 2000. The nice thing about athenaCollector compared to what we've used before is that it is a smart, intelligent system. The other ones were just dumb tools. The revenue cycle service that athenahealth provides—and the people and software behind that—it's an outstanding product. We're very pleased to be with athenahealth." © May 2016 These results reflect the experience of one particular practice and are not necessarily what every athenahealth client should expect. Because each client uses the information provided by athenaOne for Hospitals & Health Systems in different ways to improve its operations, comparative results are not available to show average performance improvements. (athenahealth) keeps our claims going out the door, so we see a steady workflow and uninterrupted revenue. " A leading provider of network-based services and mobile tools for medical groups and health systems.

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