"Every month, athenahealth adds something to the solution that is a great innovation, really making my practice life easier."
Norma Mahoney, Practice Operations Manager
Winchester Healthcare Enterprises
Letter from Jonathan
In this issue we highlight two hospital-owned systems that work with athenahealth to improve profitability, streamline workflow, and expand without adding lots of staff. And our clients are in luck when it comes to national provider identifiers (NPIs). We've been working hard to ensure that clients will make a smooth transition by the May deadline. Below, find out what you can expect from us and what you need to do. Also, Live Benchmarking enters its second year! Will you be a winner in 2007? For our company-wide auction last month that raised money for Project Health (our partner charity), our Marketing group donated a spotlight in the athenaPulse. Bruce Orgera bid on this and won. In true athenahealth style, he wanted to feature the entire Midwest Account Management team. Find out how they keep clients happy (and manage to have fun, too). Finally, we are taking a close look at the athenaPulse newsletter and other communications to clients, and we'll be making some changes to better meet the needs of our growing readership. Look for changes to the athenaPulse soon.
Save the Date for 2007 User Conference
athenahealth's 2007 User Conference will be held Sunday, September 30 – Wednesday, October 3 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. Look for more details in future issues. For highlights from the 2006 conference, click here.
Switch for Results: Nursing Medical Practices Back to Financial Health
If you come across colleagues who are "pre-athenahealth" (i.e., struggling with expensive practice management software systems that seem to complicate financial woes), feel free to pass along a new whitepaper released last month. In it, athenahealth compares how well software- versus service-based approaches deliver on collecting practice revenue, handling denial management, tracking claims, providing customer service and more. Click here for the full story.
How are Hospital-Based Clinics Doing with athenahealth?
As our clients know, athenahealth is an established leader in group practice management. Now, with an increasing number of hospital implementations, we check in with a few hospital-based clinics to see how they have leveraged athenahealth. Read about two systems that use athenahealth to improve profitability, improve workflow and expand (without drastically increasing staff!).
Will Your Practice be a Live Benchmarking Winner in 2007?
Welcome to Live Benchmarking 2007! We learned a lot in 2006 – the first year of our Live Benchmarking Program. In 2007, athenahealth practices will continue to have access to Live Benchmarking and be eligible to win, but with a few new twists. Learn about the 2007 rules here.
We're Ready for National Provider Identifiers! Are You?
You probably know about national provider identifiers (NPIs). athenahealth's NPI Workgroup has been working for two years to ensure that all our clients make the transition to NPIs as seamlessly as possible by the May 23, 2007 deadline. Are you ready for the transition? Find out here.Ann & Natalie's Compliance Corner
How can you protect electronic health information when it is accessed outside your organization? Recently, we have heard several news stories about security violations related to Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI). In response, DHHS has provided additional guidance on protecting ePHI. Learn more here.
athenista spotlight: Meet the Midwest Account Management Team
They work hard (and rarely sleep!) to make athenahealth's Midwest clients happy and profitable. And somehow, they manage to fit in some fun too. For this month's athenista spotlight, we catch up with the Midwest Account Management Team.
Performance Stats
Days in Accounts Receivable (DAR) dropped 1.9% between February 2006 and February 2007. While DAR for Commercial payers and Medicare B remained about the same, some of our biggest improvements came in our most challenging payer segments (Self-Pay, Medicaid).
Best wishes,
Johnathan Bush
