WATERTOWN, Mass., Jan. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATHN), a leading provider of network-enabled services for hospital and ambulatory clients nationwide, today announced top-performing recognition in the 2018 Best in KLAS: Software and Services Report. The report aggregates feedback from thousands of healthcare providers across the country to determine top-performing health technology vendor solutions based on breadth of operational and clinical impact on healthcare organizations. athenahealth’s ability to optimize financial and organizational performance for mid-sized practices is highlighted in the KLAS report:
- Best in KLAS: Practice Management Service, athenaCollector®, for the 11-75 physicians segment
- Best in KLAS: Ambulatory EMR, athenaClinicals®, for the 11-75 physicians segment
For the sixth consecutive year, athenahealth has been ranked no. 1 for its practice management solution and satisfaction for practices with 11-75 physicians, and has this year been recognized for its ambulatory EMR for practices of the same size.
VillageMD, an extensive network of primary care clinics based in Houston, Texas, has experienced firsthand the benefits of athenahealth’s real-time, integrated EMR data. “From the heart of Houston, our network of eight primary care clinics serves a diverse population: from commercial to Medicaid, newborn to elderly, and all others in between,” said Clive Fields, president of Village Family Practice and chief medical officer of VillageMD. “Providing high-quality, cost-effective care for our patients has always been top priority—and athenahealth’s platform helps us to achieve this goal.”
“When Hurricane Harvey hit last summer, athena was instrumental in providing the infrastructure to communicate with patients and surface medical records for critical moments of care. Before the storm, our automated patient messaging system enabled us to send 254,000 emails and text messages to more than 160,000 patients about prescription refills and clinic availability. Even after our call center lost power, we were able to access our cloud-based medical records, check prescriptions, and visit patients in their homes for continuous care,” said Fields. “Both in the eye of the hurricane and in day-to-day practice activities, athena has been a valuable partner in helping us to spend less time worried about the technology and significantly more time interacting face-to-face with our patients.”
In addition to being top-ranked in the ambulatory segment, athenahealth was also highlighted due to its continued momentum in the small hospital market:
- KLAS Category Leader: Acute Care EMR, athenaClinicals® for Hospitals and Health Systems, for the community hospital segment
As part of athenahealth’s national network of 106,000 providers and 102 million patients, hospitals and practices alike benefit from shared clinical and organizational knowledge.
For Lost Rivers Medical Center, a Critical Access Hospital (CAH) located in Arco, Idaho, the transition to a cloud-based platform has enabled a full financial transformation. “As a 14-bed enterprise tucked into the hills of Idaho, it can be difficult to find, train, and delegate in-house staff to handle much of the back-end work so critical to the survival of community hospitals,” said Brad Huerta, CEO of Lost Rivers. “athenahealth has been fundamental in taking on this work, reducing the labor of coding and billing burden here at Lost Rivers, and providing a more accessible, user-friendly solution. As a result, our physicians and staff have been freed up to focus more time on the patients we see every day.”
“When we first partnered with athena, our time in accounts receivable was close to 100 days—now, thanks to increased efficiencies in our revenue cycle, it’s down to 44. That, combined with the automation of the billing rules engine—a database constantly scrubbing claims and checking for accuracy—has led anxiety about hitting our bottom line to be a thing of the past,” said Huerta. “Thanks to the partnership of athena in helping us reach and exceed our organizational goals, we’ve been able to: reallocate our efforts away from the day-to-day grind of administrative paperwork; focus on optimizing the care experience we provide; and look ahead to the exciting and innovative initiatives we know will benefit our community at large.”
“Our commitment at athenahealth has always been to eliminate friction from the healthcare experience—which is so often the largest contributing factor to physician burnout—and to liberate providers to focus on the work that matters most,” said Jonathan Bush, CEO of athenahealth. “In 2017 alone, we took on 9.6 million tasks associated with getting paid, and today we’re connected to more than 150,000 total network endpoints, offering unparalleled access to higher-quality health information, which ultimately better informs clinical decisions. We’re thrilled to see that our progress against this commitment has been recognized by KLAS, and remain steadfast in our vision to aggregate and multiply intelligence to best serve the industry at large.”
To learn more about how athenahealth’s network insights help practices and hospitals improve financial and organizational performance, please explore athenaInsight’s High-Performing Physician Network framework.
About athenahealth, Inc.
athenahealth partners with hospital and ambulatory clients to drive clinical and financial results. We offer medical record, revenue cycle, patient engagement, care coordination, and population health services. We combine insights from our network of 106,000 providers and 102 million patients with deep industry knowledge and perform administrative work at scale. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com.
*2012-2018 Best in KLAS: Software and Services report
About KLAS
KLAS is a data-driven company on a mission to improve the world’s healthcare by enabling provider and payer voices to be heard and counted. Working with thousands of healthcare professionals, KLAS collects insights on software, services and medical equipment to deliver reports, trending data and statistical overviews. KLAS data is accurate, honest and impartial. The research directly reflects the voice of healthcare professionals and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. To learn more about KLAS and the insights we provide, visit www.KLASresearch.com.
Contact Info:
Holly Spring
athenahealth, Inc. (Media)
media@athenahealth.com
617-402-1631
Dana Quattrochi
athenahealth, Inc. (Investors)
investorrelations@athenahealth.com
617-402-1329