athenahealth Joins with Washington State Medical Association to Help Improve the Financial and Clinical Performance of the State's Medical Practices.

athenahealth Joins Corporate Affiliate Program to Help Ensure Washington Doctors are Paid Fairly and Efficiently

WATERTOWN, Mass. and SEATTLE -- athenahealth, Inc., the premier provider of web-based services, knowledge, and software for medical practices, and the Washington State Medical Association (WSMA), the state's largest physician membership organization, have joined together to offer athenahealth's Web-based athenaNet[R] services as part of the Association's Corporate Affiliate Program. Under the terms of the agreement, athenahealth will join the program and will offer its revenue and clinical back office services to members of the Association to help them increase collections and operate more efficiently. WSMA members will receive discounts for athenahealth services as part of the new affiliation.

The WSMA works with physicians to improve the quality and availability of healthcare in Washington state. "We strive to promote patients' rights to high quality care at a reasonable cost and physicians' rights to be paid a reasonable and realistic fee for their services," said W. Hugh Maloney, MD, WSMA President. "By joining with a physician revenue and clinical cycle management company like athenahealth, we will have a powerful ally for our physicians which will in turn have a positive impact on patients."

"WSMA is the latest state medical society or association to join with athenahealth as we share the common goal of making sure that physicians' offices have the latest revenue and clinical cycle management systems and services," said Jonathan Bush, chairman and chief executive officer of athenahealth. "One of the unique and powerful aspects of athenahealth's results-driven approach is that every practice using athenaNet contributes knowledge to the system daily. The result is the nation's most effective set of cross-payer rules and best practices for ensuring efficient practice management and collections for physicians."

As part of an extensive joint marketing and education program, the WSMA and athenahealth will be hosting two seminars in Washington state in November. Todd Park, health economist and co-founder of athenahealth, will lead a discussion on Mega-Trends Impacting Medical Practices Today. Park will review these trends and provide recommendations on how physicians can collectively survive and harness forces to improve the healthcare landscape. The seminars will take place on Tuesday evening November 7th in Seattle and Wednesday noon November 8th in Tacoma. If you are interested in attending please contact Beth Chapman at the WSMA by phone at 1-800-552-0612 or via e-mail at [e-mail]. If you prefer, you can register on the WSMA's web site at www.wsma.org/memresources/seminars.html .

About The Washington State Medical Association

The WSMA represents over 9,000 physicians and physician-assistants throughout Washington state. Our mission: to deliver strong advocacy that is physician driven and patient focused, working to help Washington's physicians deliver complete care that patients can trust.

About athenahealth

athenahealth provides the only physician revenue and clinical cycle management offering that integrates web-based practice management and EMR software, continually updated payer knowledge, and back office processing specialists into a single service. The results are faster payment at lower cost, improved patient care, higher revenue retention and less hassle for the more than 8,000 providers using athenahealth nationwide. The company collects nearly $2 billion on behalf of its clients annually. athenahealth is dedicated to helping providers make optimum use of their time, ultimately improving the quality of service delivered and the financial reward for it. For more information about athenahealth, visit our Web site at www.athenahealth.com or call 1-888-652-8200.