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Anywhere you go in Natchez, Mississippi, you’re likely to run into a Borum Family Health Clinic patient. Though this practice only has three providers, it’s the largest family-owned clinic in the area and sees about half of the county’s population. Borum has been proudly serving the Natchez community for almost 40 years.

Borum faces a unique set of challenges as a small practice in a rural area, with a large population of people over the age of 65. Providing patients with holistic, human health care is their priority, but navigating a web of regulatory and administrative processes is necessary to succeed as a business.

That’s why Colt McLemore, practice manager at Borum, has “fallen in love” with athenahealth. According to McLemore, services such as athenaOne® Authorization Management and athenaOne® Enhanced Claim Resolution have changed the way his clinic operates for the better, and the athenahealth support teams ensure he’s never alone in a challenge.

athenaOne Authorization Management

Before migrating to athenaOne, Borum had a full-time nurse dedicated only to obtaining prior authorizations. Even still, she would work late trying to make sure authorizations were completed in time for procedures, because the process was often so time-consuming and laborious.

Since athenahealth started managing Borum's authorizations through the athenaOne Authorization Management service, that repetitive administrative prior authorization work – which McLemore describes as otherwise “daunting” – is almost entirely off Borum’s plate. Now, nurses can spend an hour a day ensuring that no information is missing from prior authorization or referral requests, and they can focus on patient care activities with the rest of their time. According to McLemore, “the return on investment is amazing. With the amount of time [Authorization Management] frees up compared to what we invested just to have it, it works wonders.”

That impact in time savings has translated directly into an increased capacity to see patients – in fact, the clinic’s patient load has increased by 30% since introducing this service. Clinicians are able to provide more care to more community members, and patients benefit from getting to see doctors sooner.

athenaOne Enhanced Claim Resolution

McLemore used to do the self-described monotonous task of claims resolution himself. Not only did this consume his time, but as the sole person doing that work, it could lead to delays in resolution and, therefore, delays in getting paid.

Now that athenahealth works even more claims through the Enhanced Claim Resolution Service, not only does McLemore get his own time back, but the clinic also sees higher revenue and more schedule availability.

He says, “athenaOne has allowed us to nearly double the revenue we’ve generated through making things more efficient, capturing better claims, and just seeing more patients and doing better care.” 

A holistic solution with dedicated support

At any clinic, but particularly a small and rural one, having resources you can turn to when you encounter a challenge is important. With athenahealth, customers have a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM), ready access to a broad library of self-serve resources, free and personalized training and coaching services, and more, to make sure there’s always a path to getting the help you need, when and how you need it.

When asked about the most successful elements of partnering with athenahealth, McLemore mentioned the return on investment for services such as Authorization Management, and then quickly brought up the relationship with his CSM. He says that with athenaOne, you’re never alone: “If you have a serious problem going on, then athena can find someone who can fix that serious problem.”

In his experience, Borum Family Health Clinic has never been alone in a challenge with athenahealth at their side.

Unlock the value Borum has experienced

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