Thriving through the unexpected

STAT-MD Urgent Care serves a growing number of patients seeking primary care. They expanded to two locations, and partnered with athenahealth to get an integrated, flexible and always-current platform to help them scale up and accommodate both urgent and nonacute visits. During the upheaval of COVID-19, STAT-MD successfully adapted so they could continue to serve patients safely and effectively.

‘The one thing I don’t have to worry about is running our business’

When the pandemic started, STAT-MD’s patient volume fluctuated dramatically. Having athenaOne, a cloud-based suite of EHR, revenue cycle management, and patient engagement services, helped stabilize operations so they could keep their commitment to seeing patients from check-in to check-out in under an hour. “If we had been using our previous urgent care-specific EHR, it would have been a nightmare,” said Bryan Knepper, CEO. “With athenaOne, we could continue to capture encounters and submit claims efficiently. It’s the only platform that is broad enough to handle any clinical situation and provide precise workflows to keep us organized and profitable.”

STAT-MD staff used athenaCommunicator, athenaOne’s patient engagement service, to update patients on COVID-19 protocols. Knepper and his team also integrated a mobile check-in application from athenahealth’s Marketplace, Epion, so patients could complete check-in remotely. “It took me less than five minutes to send a message to our entire patient population. Setting up mobile check-in was as easy as using the App Store,” said Knepper. “It reassured our patients to know what steps we were taking to ensure their safety.”

Helping STAT-MD successfully navigate the pandemic is one example of how athenaOne flexes with an evolving environment. “athenahealth is constantly adapting so we don’t have to worry about keeping up with changes,” Knepper said. “Whether it’s a pandemic or a program like MIPS, athena takes care of all the necessary updates to charting, coding and billing. Those changes appear automatically in our workflows so we can focus on what we do best.”

Providers and staff appreciate how intuitive athenaOne is. athenaClinicals, athenahealth’s streamlined EHR, frees providers from filling out an overwhelming number of form fields so they can spend more face-to-face time with patients. Patients notice a difference, too. “Our patients often mention how seamless their visit was because of the technology we use,” said Knepper.

athenaOne has enabled Knepper to create an organization that serves people exceptionally — patients, staff and providers — no matter what the future may bring. “With athenahealth as our partner, the one thing I don’t have to worry about is running our business.”