Healthcare IT company athenahealth hosted an event at the Becker's ASC 22nd Annual Conference in October. athenahealth began as a revenue cycle company and expanded into clinical EMR, patient portal, population health and inpatient focuses. The company provides a single-instant multi-tenant platform for healthcare.
There are 72,000 buyers using their network and more than 100 billion hits on the website each year. "Our vision at athena is to build an information backbone to make healthcare work as it should," said Michael Maus, vice president of enterprise solutions at athenahealth. "All of this here is happening within our systems and they should be able to talk to each other and communicate between unique systems. We want to connect care."
The company reported 94 percent of all the claims that are submitted through athena are paid the first time, and Athena doesn't get paid until the healthcare facility is paid. The company is extending across the care continuum. Traditionally, athenahealth was just in the ambulatory setting, but now is moving into the inpatient setting as well with the RazorInsights.
Earlier this year, athena formed a strategic alliance with Beth Deaconess with the RazorInsights platform to build out their cases. Going forward, the company will be focused on under 50-bed hospitals and then will move their way upstream.
At the event, the attendees were able to discuss some of the biggest issues at their centers. Here were some of the key results:
1. Most of the attendees moderately agreed their centers were in good position heading into the future. There were concerns about high deductible health plans and patient responsibility payments.
2. A majority of the attendees moderately agreed their operation model is in need of disruption. Patients are looking for more transparent pricing and quality, which takes time and effort to develop. Consumerism has been a form of disruption as well as payer innovation.
3. Most surgery centers felt the most important focus area going forward is engaging and attracting patients. Others felt increasing the number of physicians coming to the facility was most important to drive case load.
Finally, the participants discussed relationships with hospitals, new payment models and the shift to value-based care. Employers are becoming self-insured in some communities and ASCs could be valuable for them in the future.