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 for a Caribbean cruise for four people.
“We were elated when we heard that one of our practices - Altavista Medical Center - had won,” said Kassaundra Carey, Centra Health Professional Services Operations Manager. “We were so happy. We were also surprised, even though we had placed several times throughout the year in the Southern Region.”
If you’re an athenahealth client, you already know that Live Benchmarking has generated some healthy competition (and frequent checking of scores). Live Benchmarking provides clients with a quick pulse check of their practice compared to others in their region and specialty on these key metrics:
- Average length of time (in days) between the date of service and the date the charge is entered
- Average number of days it takes to resolve a practice responsibility front-end rejection or back-end denial
- Percentage of open self-pay balances that are older than 90 days
At the end of each quarter, athenahealth looks at an aggregate score of these metrics to determine the top three practices in each region and specialty. And all quarterly winners are eligible to win the grand prize.
“We’ll be sending four individuals from the Altavista Medical Center on the cruise,” said Carey. “It’s because of them that we won this prize.”
Centra Health began working with athenahealth in February 2002. athenahealth has proven to be a phenomenal tool for developing operational policies and procedures throughout Centra Health. Through workflow changes and a better understanding of the billing and claims collection process, the health care system was able to expand dramatically over five years.
So what’s the secret to getting the prize? “Teamwork and physician buy-in,” said Carey. “It’s also important to have the right people in place. We want our staff to get claims submitted efficiently, but also to make our patients feel that we care for them – that they’re not just numbers walking in the door.” In fact, the mission statement for Centra Health states: “We Provide Excellent Care Every Time.”