Care coordination in today’s healthcare world is a mess, orders arriving complete get lost in the shuffle or don’t get where they need to go. It’s staff efficiency drives up costs and leaves physicians and patients frustrated. The good news fixing the mess can actually help you grow a happy physician network and drive patient loyalty. Let’s look at the facts. Physicians want to work with a health system that’s easy to do business with and closes the loop on care. You want to strengthen and grow you physician network and get referral patterns under control. And patients want an easier, better healthcare experience. At athenahealth we’ve figured out a way to coordinate care efficiently so everyone benefits. It’s called athenaCoordinator; let’s look at how it works.

First meet our physician liaisons, they reach out to providers in your network and equip them with a free, easy to use web portal for sending orders. And they back it up with ongoing training and support. Physicians use the portal to send orders to your health system complete with demographics, insurance information and all important details. Right away our rules engine checks the order for eligibility and raises any red flags that might slow payment. A real time database of billing rules and requirements makes sure the appropriate coverage is in place.

Next athenahealth specialists take to the phones, reaching out to payers conducting benefits analysis and securing preauthorizations and they make sure patients are registered, scheduled and ready to pay for their visit. All that work up front pays off for you later with fewer denials and less bad debt from lost point of service collections and less work and hassle for physicians and their staff. When patients arrive at your facility they enjoy a red carpet experience, no waiting around, no duplicate forms to fill out, no uncertainty about what to pay. They get better care and a better overall experience with your health system. Once the patient is discharged the provider who sent the order gets a complete discharge summary with real time access to the status of every order, which orders have been filled and which are pending. They can close the loop on patient care so that’s how we do it. With athenaCoordinator your providers can send orders with greater ease and less work than ever. You get clean orders, loyal patients and more insight into and control of referral patterns and your network of satisfied physicians grows larger and better connected everyday. athenahealth there is a better way.