“It’s like night and day. You know if you did something wrong instantly (or at least soon) and have an absolute ability to track every single claim and know exactly what happened.”
Craig Weeks
Administrator, Kim Bowman, M.D.
Letter from Jonathan
In this issue, see what participants are saying about our 6th annual User Conference. And we’ve just launched the first-ever fully-integrated all-payer platform that enables our entire client base to perform real-time adjudication (RTA) of medical claims at the point-of-service. We’ve been busy! How about you? Are you still calculating complicated Medicare expenditures (like therapy caps) by hand? If so, see what our behind-the-scenes calculator can do for your practice in the Rule of the Month column. Are you still struggling with a decision about an EMR? athenaClinicalsSM has been getting lots of attention lately. Read about how we’re getting better at bringing clients live and why you should consider our unique EMR solution. Find out who won our quarterly Live Benchmarking contest (and how you can win next time). It’s also time to think about revising your practice’s compliance plan for 2008. Check out our list of what you should be updating in this month’s Compliance Corner. For all this – and an introduction to our hardworking Marketing Events Team – read on!
User Conference 2007: What Did You Miss?
They came from across the country – all 361 of the conference attendees – and they had a blast, judging from this year’s feedback. The 2007 User Conference was our biggest, most information-packed (and fun) to date. See what participants said about their experience.
Announcing Q3 Live Benchmarking Winners
Congratulations to this quarter’s Live Benchmarking winners! Read all about this competitive (and extremely useful) feature of athenaNet, and find out who won this quarter.
Rule of the Month: Automatic Medicare Therapy Cap Tracking
This month, we see how athenahealth’s “behind-the-scenes calculator” saves clients from tracking complicated Medicare expenditures by hand. Learn more here.
Client Success Story: Leveraging a Clinical Network for Improved Outcomes
After establishing Pediatric Partners, a single-site practice with three physicians northeast of San Diego, Dr. Thomas Mohr quickly became frustrated with massive front- and back-office inefficiencies. Find out how his practice flourished by implementing athenaCollector and athenaClinicals.
athenaClinicalsSM Go-Live: What We’ve Learned So Far
athenaClinicals, our unique EMR solution, has been getting lots of attention. And with clients implementing athenaClinicals in ever-increasing numbers, we’re getting better at bringing them live. Read about what we’ve learned so far.
Inside athenaCollectorSM: The First Fully-Integrated Platform for Real-Time Adjudication
We’ve just developed and launched the first fully-integrated all-payer platform that enables our entire client base to perform real-time adjudication (RTA) of medical claims at the point-of-service for participating payers. Check it out here.
Ann & Natalie’s Compliance Corner
This month, we bring you guidance on updating your compliance plan in response to the recently-released 2008 OIG Work Plan. Click here.
athenista Spotlight: Meet the Marketing Events Team
They’re responsible for athenahealth’s presence at national tradeshows, they run the athenahealth Institute, and manage the entire User Conference. How do these athenistas pull it off? Meet Maria Chow and Cheryl Kaufman, this month’s featured athenahealth team.
Performance Stats
Days in Accounts Receivable (DAR) dropped 2.7% between October 2006 and October 2007. The biggest decreases came among Commercial and Workers Compensation payers, but we saw decreases in almost all areas.
What is DAR?
athenahealth’s Days in Accounts Receivable (DAR) represents the claim lifecycle beginning-to-end: starting the day a charge is entered into athenaNet to the day payment for a charge is posted. We calculate DAR by taking the total dollar outstanding, averaged over the last seven days of the month, and dividing by a rolling average of daily charges for the past 60 days. So it’s not simply a measure of a payer’s payment cycle. It’s actually a full assessment of a provider’s A/R cash flow. When DAR drops, your practice gets paid faster. It’s one of the many ways we use data to help you understand (and improve) your practice profitability and workflow.
Best wishes,
Johnathan Bush
