Category Archives: Health administration

iSALUS Healthcare, CIPROMS Partner to Launch Revenue Cycle Management

iSALUS Healthcare, a privately held electronic medical records and practice management service provider, and CIPROMS, Inc., an Indianapolis-based revenue cycle management firm, are partnering to offer medical billing and revenue cycle management services.  The agreement allows both organizations to co-promote their respective services.

“The healthcare industry is quickly becoming more automated with electronic medical records.  We felt it was time to provide a fully integrated service that could save physicians time, improve efficiency, and enhance patient care, while delivering increased financial performance.  It is critical for our organization to be aligned with a leading EMR and practice management solution provider, and we were fortunate to find that team right here in Indianapolis,” said Cheryl Louks , president and CEO of CIPROMS.

The management at both iSALUS and CIPROMS recognized that in today’s fast-paced medical environment, there is little time for providers to focus on all the necessary details to ensure a practice is reaching its financial potential.  As such, the partnership addresses the market need to deliver medical billing services within a web-based EMR.  This solution is designed to increase practice revenue, reduce costs, and minimize the administrative aggravations associated with the ever-changing rules and regulations.

“Being a 100% mobile practice poses challenges for a traditional EMR company and managing all the paper charting became very burdensome and time consuming for me as a physician.  I wanted to transition to an EMR for process improvement and efficiencies and knew an all-inclusive solution was ideal.  I chose OfficeEMR™ RCM for its simplicity, mobile application, and the ability to provide medical billing services within an integrated cloud-based service,” said Dr. Irene Roge , D.P.M.  “It is great to have one affordable solution that services both the clinical and financial aspects of my practice.”

“Our partnership with CIPROMS is a noteworthy milestone for iSALUS.  Physician practices are increasingly forced to navigate the choppy waters of changing regulations while trying to manage constant margin pressure.  It was imperative that we offer our clients a ‘best in class’ solution to address such pressures.  We have a long-standing relationship with CIPROMS and I am pleased to be moving forward with this all-in-one service,” said Michael Hall , founder and CEO of iSALUS Healthcare.

athenahealth Acquires Healthcare Data Services

athenahealth, Inc., a  provider of cloud-based practice management, electronic health record (EHR), and care coordination services, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Healthcare Data Services LLC (HDS), a web-based solutions provider and expert in health care data analysis and population health management for payers and providers. It is anticipated that the transaction will close in October 2012.

This acquisition is expected to expand athenahealth’s cloud-based services portfolio to include high-value, population-based cost and quality data analysis and reporting capabilities. By expanding its services in this way, athenahealth will be strengthening its ability to support health care organizations to navigate the growing number of risk-based payment models, and align care coordination with patient population needs.

“Value-based payment models are fundamentally changing the way patient care is coordinated, delivered, and reimbursed,” said Jonathan Bush, CEO and chairman of athenahealth. “With HDS, we can help health care organizations to thrive in the face of change—to drive down costs through smart, high quality care coordination and to understand the totality of services being provided. This acquisition supports our existing efforts to create an information backbone that makes health care work as it should.”

New payment models offered by the U.S. government and commercial health plans aim to create a reimbursement system that links care reimbursement to the quality of care delivered and, ultimately, to reduce overall health care expenses for populations of patients. These risk-based contracts come in a variety of models, including pay-for-performance (P4P) incentives, bundled payments, shared savings, and global capitation; each requires improved insight into patient population data so that health care organizations can gauge and manage patient needs while simultaneously tracking and adjusting their own performance against risk-based reimbursement contracts.

The addition of HDS would bring many advantages and synergies that would expand athenahealth’s recognition as a single-source provider of best-in-class workflow and data insight solutions to support all payment models:

  • Proven Innovation Excellence – HDS has led the market for population
    health tools in Massachusetts, which in turn has led the country in
    transforming toward more of an accountable care health care
    marketplace. Together, the combined organization would be able to help
    a broader set of health care organizations to drive quality and
    improvement to the way care is coordinated and reimbursed.
  • Key and Differentiating Services – The proven services and value of
    HDS would be able to leverage athenahealth’s investment, sales force
    capacity, and complementary cloud-based services. HDS complements
    athenahealth’s commitment to support risk-based payment models, as
    well as athenahealth’s mission to be the best in the world at getting
    medical caregivers paid for doing the right thing.
  • Advancement to Health Information Open Exchange – With HDS,
    athenahealth could better support health care organizations in their
    access and use of data as a means to drive clinical and financial
    improvement. HDS complements athenahealth’s clinical-cycle,
    patient-cycle, and care coordination workflows, as well as
    athenahealth’s efforts to create a health care information backbone to
    make health care work as it should.
  • Accelerated Growth within the Large-to-Enterprise Market – HDS brings
    valuable relationships within the medium-to-large health systems
    market. Greater access to these organizations would accelerate
    athenahealth’s delivery of its cloud-based services and in turn
    contribute to growing revenue streams.

“By combining HDS with athenahealth, we expect to create a comprehensive, easy-to-access platform for health care organizations to take on and succeed in the face of payment reform and the shift to accountable care,” said Jonathan Porter, co-founder of HDS. “The massive changes going on in health care reimbursement create challenges, but more so create opportunities. Together with athenahealth, we would be able to bridge the gap between providers, payers, and patients by providing ready-to-use population health management capabilities as part of EHR workflows that support restructured payment models and ensure the delivery of appropriate and necessary care to patients.”