Improving patient pay yield and efficiency with athenaOne®

In 2018, Dr. Tony Euser, physician-owner of Advanced Urgent Care, transitioned away from athenaOne to a competitor’s EHR marketed specifically for urgent care. The move, however, brought unexpected consequences: over the following 18 months, the practice experienced major revenue cycle issues that resulted in multimillion-dollar losses. When the organization returned to athenaOne in 2019, Dr. Euser described the experience as “coming home.” Since then, he’s observed significant gains in financial performance, streamlined clinical operations, and improved overall practice management — results he attributes to athenaOne’s automation capabilities, flexibility, and responsive support for urgent care workflows.

One major issue with the competitor’s software was slow claims processing. Dr. Euser noted, “We had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on timely filing,” attributing this to the lack of claims automation and inadequate data scrubbing. In contrast, athenaOne’s capabilities allowed for more timely and accurate claims processing. In the previous system, claims were filed as initially entered, leading to frustrating delays when claims were rejected, needed to be reworked, and/or sat in review for long periods of time. With athenaOne, claims are scrubbed before submission, significantly improving acceptance rates.

Dr. Euser also emphasized the importance of having a patient credit card on file to streamline payments. In his experience with the competitor’s EHR, this workflow created more work for staff, as they had to manually submit the card on file. However, with athenaOne, he found the automated process much more “slick,” allowing for smoother payment collection.

With the support of his dedicated Customer Success Manager who specializes in the needs of urgent care businesses, he has effectively set and tracked goals, ensuring that the improvements at Advanced Urgent Care are the result of strategic planning and implementation.

Schedule a call with one of our specialists to learn more about how athenaOne for Urgent Care can improve your financial performance while reducing administrative burden.