“athenahealth has done really well for us and made my job a lot easier.”
Sani Mirza
CEO, San Antonio Orthopedic Group and Hughston Clinic
Letter from Jonathan
Our latest User Conference ended just days ago, and we’re still recovering from all the knockout sessions, socializing and networking. Check out some highlights below, including a big congratulations to Altavista Medical Center, grand prize winner of the 2007 Live Benchmarking Program. Find out what they won (and how they did it). Once again, athenahealth is going where no company has gone before: we’re embarking on a new initiative that will help athenaClinicalsSM clients understand every aspect of the patient care they provide – from the moment each patient walks in the door. Find out how we’re proposing to do this (and how practices will benefit) in this month’s athenaClinicals update. But if you can’t answer important questions about your practice, should you be considering an EMR? Not yet, according to this month’s athenaCollectorSM article. Likewise, the Rule of the Month can help your practice eliminate extra staff work (and boost profitability) by automatically tracking global billing periods. And have you heard about the Stark Law Final Rule released last month? Find out what your practice needs to know in the Compliance Corner. Finally, we check in with one of the most popular teams at athenahealth. For all this and more, read on!
Join athenahealth at MGMA
athenahealth looks forward to meeting you at this year’s MGMA National Conference. Visit us at Booth #1119 to learn more about our unique service approach to physician billing, practice management, and EMR.
We focus on delivering the results you deserve. Learn how your practice can achieve faster payment, increased collection rates, and dramatically improved control over operations. For questions, or to schedule a demonstration, click here.
athenahealth’s 6th Annual User Conference: This Just In
We’ve just wrapped up our biggest, most information-packed and fun-filled conference to date. Here are some of the highlights.
Rule of the Month: Global Periods
Does your practice bill for procedures with global periods? Do you know each procedure’s number of global days for pre- and post-op care? How do you tell if there is a procedure with global days lurking in the patient history? If you can’t come up with answers to these (and other) questions quickly, your practice could be losing time and money. Learn more here.
Altavista Medical Center Awarded Live Benchmarking Grand Prize
After another year offering the ever-popular Live Benchmarking on athenaNet®, we’re happy to announce that Altavista Medical Center of Altavista, Virginia won the 2007 grand prize drawing. What did they win and how did they do it?
athenaClinicalsSM Tackles Practice Performance Management
Once again, athenahealth is going where no company has gone before: we’re building functionality into athenaClinicals (our unique EMR solution) that will help practices understand every aspect of the patient care they provide – and improve on it – to increase productivity and profitability. Learn more here.
Inside athenaCollectorSM: Consider an EMR for the Right Reasons
Physicians work harder and take more work home than ever before. Electronic medical records (EMRs) can save a practice time and money. But they must be implemented for the right reasons. What should you consider before getting an EMR?
Ann & Natalie’s Compliance Corner
This month, we discuss the highly anticipated Stark Phase III Final Rule. Find out what your practice needs to know about this updated guidance on appropriately referring Medicare and Medicaid patients. Click here.
athenista Spotlight: Meet the Electronic Data Interchange Team
Processing claims on behalf of all our clients, they’re the heart of athenahealth’s services. And they truly enjoy the detective work of reconciling every submission, ironing out electronic submission wrinkles and getting clients’ claim submission questions answered. Maybe that’s why they’re the highlight of the athenahealth corporate tour. Meet the Electronic Data Interchange group, this month’s featured athenista team.
Performance Stats
Days in Accounts Receivable (DAR) dropped 3.2% between September 2006 and September 2007. We saw decreases across almost all areas, but the biggest improvement came from Commercial payers.
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
