athenahealth’s Integration of E-Prior Authorization for Prescriptions into athenaClinicals Reduces Approval Process from Nine Days to Three; Cuts Administrative Work in Half i
WATERTOWN, Mass. and COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATHN), a leading provider of network-enabled services, and CoverMyMeds (CMM), a leading electronic prior authorization (“ePA”) platform for prescriptions, today announced a technology partnership that will automate the ePA process for providers using the athenaClinicals® electronic health record service.
Of the estimated 185 million prescriptions a year in the U.S. that require prior authorization from payers, 40 percent are eventually abandonedii. One reason is because the process to determine insurance coverage is extremely time-consuming, involving phone calls and faxes between pharmacy, provider and health insurer. This can leave the patient in limbo, waiting for medication. To help alleviate this burden, athenahealth® and CoverMyMeds have worked together to integrate CoverMyMed’s ePA platform software into the workflow of athenaClinicals® for a fully-integrated experience with features including auto-population of ePA requests for medications and the ability to receive real-time determinations from partnered health plans.
According to the American Medical Association, 75 percent of physicians find the prior authorization burden high.iii However, providers who use an electronic method save more than two and a half hours per week.iv athenahealth physicians will be able to initiate prior authorization requests electronically, thereby eliminating the need for tedious paperwork, faxes, and follow-up calls, while helping patients receive the medication they need more quickly. Early adopters of ePA on athenaClinicals have cut their average prior authorization determination time by two-thirds—from nine days to three, while administrative data entry has been reduced by half.v
“As part of our commitment to reducing our clients’ work through intelligent automation, we’re proud to partner with CoverMyMeds to connect clients to payers and pharmacy managers to ease the transactions associated with prior authorizations,” said Kyle Armbrester, chief product officer at athenahealth. “We’ve tackled some of the most onerous, revenue-draining tasks on behalf of our clients— patient insurance authorization, insurance denials, and patient scheduling—to name a few. And, as an open cloud platform, we can introduce new offerings at scale in contrast to siloed legacy systems. Through partnerships with companies like CoverMyMeds, athenahealth will continue to meet the demands of its providers while helping them optimize care management and navigate the business of healthcare.”
“Partnering with athenahealth brings us another step closer to accomplishing our mission of helping patients get the medications they need to live healthy lives,” said Scott Gaines, SVP and general manager, provider solutions at CoverMyMeds. “By integrating the ePA process into the workflow, we’re able to facilitate real-time determinations and reduce the chances of patients leaving the pharmacy without their prescription. We’re thrilled to partner with athenahealth to bring this critical capability to providers.”
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About athenahealth, Inc.
athenahealth partners with hospital and ambulatory clients to drive clinical and financial results. athenahealth offers medical record, revenue cycle, patient engagement, care coordination, and population health services. The company combines insights from its network of 87,000 providers and 85 million patients with deep industry knowledge and performs administrative work at scale. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com.
About CoverMyMeds
Founded on the mission of helping patients get the medication they need to live healthy lives, CoverMyMeds is a leader in electronic prior authorization (ePA) solutions, and one of the fastest growing health care technology companies in the U.S. CoverMyMeds’ software suite automates the medication prior authorization process for more than 500 electronic health records (EHR) systems, 49,000 pharmacies, 700,000 providers and most health plans and PBMs. By ensuring appropriate access to medications, the company helps its customers avoid billions of dollars each year in administrative waste and avoidable medical spending caused by prescription abandonment. Visit www.covermymeds.com for more information.
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i Data is based on results of athenahealth beta users as of Jan 1, 2017.
ii Data from the ePA National Adoption Scorecard: https://epascorecard.covermymeds.com
iii https://wire.ama-assn.org/practice-management/survey-quantifies-time-burdens-prior-authorization
iv Data from the ePA National Adoption Scorecard: https://epascorecard.covermymeds.com
v Data is based on results of athenahealth beta users as of Jan 1, 2017.