"You have only to experience athenahealth's impact on your practice to understand why they will rule the industry, taking their clients along for the ride. athenahealth shares, cultivates, and nurtures our practice's mission as a healthcare delivery group - and as a business."
Susan Nix
Director of Professional Reimbursement, San Antonio Orthopedics, San Antonio, TX
Letter from Jonathan
At last - good news from The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Late last month, CMS announced proposed fee changes will likely increase Medicare reimbursement to many of our practices. We tell you all about it this issue. In our ongoing mission to be your out-and-out most trusted and effective partner, we're pleased to announce our newly updated Code of Conduct. Read all about it and get tips on updating your practice's own Code of Conduct (if it needs a little dusting off) in this month's Compliance Corner. And if you thought the World Cup was exciting, check out our second quarter Live Benchmarking winners, also in this issue. A special announcement... registration is now open for our User Conference - the most anticipated athenahealth event of the year! This year's conference promises to be the biggest, most useful and well-attended ever and we look forward to seeing you there. For all this and more (including our featured athenista's past honor as Employee of the Month at Honey Dew Donuts), read on.
Live benchmarking winners for Q2
Congratulations to the second quarter winners in athenahealth's Live Benchmarking Program! See our list of winners (and find out how you can join them) here.
Changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule: Good news?
This time, it's good news from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Proposed changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) could increase reimbursement for the time you spend with patients. Learn more here.
athenaClinicals saves practices from handling over 11,000 documents in June
You process truckloads of paper every day. How much time does this take away from other important activities, such as seeing patients? Find out how athenaClinicals saves practices from the paperwork burden here.Ann & Dan's Compliance Corner
This month, we announce athenahealth's newly updated Code of Conduct and give you tips for developing a Code for your own practice. Click here for more.
athenista spotlight: Meet Jamie Flaherty
She's your co-pilot, partner and advocate at athenahealth. Once awarded the coveted "Employee of the Month" at Honey Dew Donuts, she is now our Client Service Associate in the Northeast Region. Meet Jamie Flaherty, this month's featured athenista. Miss one of our athenista profiles? Click here for the archive.
Registration now open! athenahealth's 5th Annual User Conference is October 10-13, 2006
The 2006 athenahealth User Conference will be held October 10-13, 2006 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. It's our biggest conference to date! The full conference agenda and registration information is now available online.
Free webinar! Broken Reimbursement: Eight Critical Revenue Factors for Small Medical Practice Success
Small medical groups face unique challenges in their struggle to maintain financial viability. In this free webinar, athenahealth's Bill Conway joins Michael Ferry and Michelle Wier of Halley Consulting Group to provide an overview of current barriers to small group success. Learn about strategies that will enable you to overcome those barriers - including the eight revenue factors, performance indicators and potential strategies for each factor, and how to effectively manage the performance improvement process. To learn more and view this free, one-hour webinar, click here.
Buzz continues around groundbreaking PayerView website
Last month, athenahealth launched PayerView, the first-ever review of health insurer performance from the vantage point of physicians. No one has ever made this kind of information public before, and we've created quite a buzz in the national media. Read the latest interviews and articles here and visit the PayerView rankings here.
Vital Stats
Days in Accounts Receivable (DAR) dropped 2.5% between June 2005 and June 2006, with lost patient care revenue (LPCR) steady at 4.8%. While DAR dropped overall, DAR for Blues, Medicare and Medicaid remained about the same. (This is partly due to all the re-adjudicated Medicaid payments we've been processing on your behalf.) We're working hard to make sure DAR continues to go down among all the major payer categories.
athenaFunnies: What's for lunch?
True stories from the athenaFunnies vault
Heard on a recent call to Client Services:
Client: What should we have for lunch today?
athenahealth: Pizza. Is there anything else I can help you with?
Client: That's it! Thanks.
Best wishes,
Johnathan Bush
