Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and athenahealth, Inc. Bring Direct Connectivity to Physicians' Practices Via the Internet.Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers WELLESLEY, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 2004 Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and athenahealth, Inc., the premier provider of revenue cycle optimization services to medical group practices, announced the implementation of new technology that enables direct connectivity between physicians' practices and Harvard Pilgrim via an Internet connection. The new technology, HealthCare Transaction Services (HTS HTS Heights HTS Harmonized Tariff System HTS High Throughput Screening (biomolecular assay screening) HTS High-Throughput Screening (Pharmaceutical Industry) HTS Harmonized Tariff Schedule ), enables physicians and practice managers to check insurance information, such as eligibility and co-payments, for Harvard Pilgrim members directly from the athenahealth revenue cycle management system. The connection will have significant financial benefits because it accelerates and streamlines the workflow, empowering practices with real-time information. "Harvard Pilgrim is committed to reducing the amount of administrative complexity in the health care system so that practices can focus on delivery of care and not on paperwork," said Leanne Berge, Harvard Pilgrim's Senior Vice President for Network Service and Operations. "HTS was developed for the physician practices in our network that don't have private network connections, and need a way to easily streamline their workflows. We partnered with athenahealth because of their proven success in simplifying and speeding up revenue cycle transactions." Eligibility verification is just the first transaction that athenahealth will make available to providers via the HTS technology. In the coming months, its Web-based revenue cycle management system will also enable physicians' practices to check claims status with Harvard Pilgrim and receive a remittance advice and will eventually offer all of the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996, Public Law 104-191) Also known as the "Kennedy-Kassebaum Act," this U.S. law protects employees' health insurance coverage when they change or lose their jobs (Title I) and provides standards for patient health, defined transactions such as submission of referrals and authorizations, as well as handling responses to requests for more information. Additionally, the adoption of HTS will yield improvements over the legacy technology currently in place that manages the direct submission of claims by athenahealth to Harvard Pilgrim. "athenahealth offers a unique combination of practice management technology, deep industry knowledge, and a staff of trained claims experts," said Jonathan Bush Jonathan James Bush (born May 6,1931), an American banker, a brother of President George H. W. Bush, and an uncle of President George W. Bush. Education Bush graduated from the Hotchkiss School and Yale University. , CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of athenahealth. "Our services ensure that claims are processed correctly the first time and that physicians are reimbursed much faster than the national average." In its review of technology solutions for medical practices last year, the Massachusetts Medical Society The Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) is the oldest continuously-operating state medical society in the United States. Incorporated on November 1, 1781, by an act of the Massachusetts General Court, the MMS is a non-profit organization that consists of approximately 18,500 fully endorsed athenahealth's revenue cycle management system, and offers it to its members at a discounted rate. More than 20,000 providers use EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) The electronic communication of business transactions, such as orders, confirmations and invoices, between organizations. Third parties provide EDI services that enable organizations with different equipment to connect. connectivity, Harvard Pilgrim's Web portal See portal. or the NEHEN NEHEN New England Healthcare EDI Network collaborative to conduct EDI business transactions directly with the health plan. These three channels currently account for over one million HIPAA-compliant transactions per month. The athenahealth agreement ensures that physicians, hospitals and other medical providers have yet another option for conducting electronic, HIPAA-compliant transactions with Harvard Pilgrim. About athenahealth athenahealth offers the only physician enterprise management service to integrate workflow, billing and collections. The results are faster payment at lower cost, higher revenue retention and less hassle. athenahealth is an industry process expert, and a quality driven citizen of the healthcare community. The company is dedicated to continually improving the healthcare workflow Workflow in healthcare is an important term for today's physicians. The workflow describes the full process of how the office and patient work with each other. From the momement the patient calls to setup and exam, to the billers working on the claims, this is all inclusive in a to help providers get optimum use out of their technology, ultimately improving the quality of service delivered. athenahealth offers a premium Web-based transactional platform and delivers a unique combination of technology, knowledge and work to link providers to payers through intelligent patient and claims processing. For more information about athenahealth, visit www.athenahealth.com or call 1-888-652-8200. About Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is a not-for-profit health plan with 800,000 members in Massachusetts, New Hampshire New Hampshire, one of the New England states of the NE United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts (S), Vermont, with the Connecticut R. forming the boundary (W), the Canadian province of Quebec (NW), and Maine and a short strip of the Atlantic Ocean (E). and Maine. It has a network of more than 22,000 providers and 130 hospitals. Harvard Pilgrim is the only health plan in the country to be rated among the top ten for both member satisfaction and clinical effectiveness according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a report released by the National Committee for Quality Assurance National Committee for Quality Assurance Medical practice A private, not-for-profit organization which has become the leading accreditor of managed care plans; in site visits, NCQA reviewers evaluate a managed care plan in terms of quality management, physicians' . Harvard Pilgrim provides innovative approaches to health improvement and disease management, unique online tools that speed and simplify key transactions for employers, brokers and providers, and personalized health support at www.harvardpilgrim.org. |
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