UnitedHealthcare and athenahealth Expand Availability of Real-Time Claim Adjudication
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. and WATERTOWN, Mass. – (Jan. 3, 2008) – UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) company, announced it is collaborating with athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN), a leading provider of internet-based business services for physician practices, to further expand the two companies’ national real-time claim adjudication (RTA) capabilities.
This collaborative effort enables physician offices nationwide using athenahealth’s on-demand practice management service to submit UnitedHealthcare claims and receive a fully adjudicated response in seconds. The joint project broadens the availability of real-time claims processing and shows physician office staff and patients within seconds how a claim will be paid.
athenahealth currently submits more than 1.5 million claims a year to UnitedHealthcare and works with medical providers in 33 states.
UnitedHealthcare first launched real time claims processing in January 2007, using its dedicated physician Web site, www.unitedhealthcareonline.com. Physician office staff submitting claims through the site can receive a fully adjudicated claim in seconds, reducing administrative burden and allowing patients to pay for services before leaving the doctor’s office.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Ken Burdick said: “In order to streamline the system for physicians and consumers, UnitedHealthcare is advancing technologies that operate on a single platform and can be used by anyone within the health care system. By collaborating with athenahealth and expanding the availability of real time adjudication, we are helping to reduce costs for consumers and physicians and bringing the health care industry a step closer to a more retail-like environment.”
Connecting RTA into athenahealth’s national physician platform expands UnitedHealthcare’s real-time capability to the critical practice management workflow and desktop space, which is an important advancement since most physician offices use third-party solutions or have to dual-submit claims for traditional real-time adjudication platforms.
“UnitedHealthcare’s continued expansion of real-time claim adjudication shows its commitment to simplifying physicians’ and consumers’ health care finances,” said Jonathan Bush, chairman and CEO of athenahealth. “By leveraging a national network like athenahealth, thousands of medical providers and their staff will now be able to collect payment from their patients faster and more accurately. Our RTA platform and ongoing PayerViewSM initiative clearly illustrates our commitment to staying ahead of emerging industry trends like consumerism for our physician clients and bringing process integrity to the delivery and payment of health care across the nation.”
athenahealth announced its national platform for real-time claims processing in October 2007. The platform is designed to allow any payer who meets certain technological requirements to participate by linking to the athenaNet® network, athenahealth’s centrally hosted practice management and EMR service platform. athenahealth clients across the country are able to use the information returned in the real-time response to understand the exact amount that should be collected from the patient at the time of service within a matter of seconds. athenahealth’s RTA platform is one of several areas that the company is aggressively pursuing to help furnish provider clients with relevant information at the time of service as they look to operate more effective medical practices and navigate an increasingly complex reimbursement environment.
About UnitedHealth Group
UnitedHealth Group (www.unitedhealthgroup.com) is a diversified health and well-being company dedicated to making health care work better. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., UnitedHealth Group offers a broad spectrum of products and services through seven operating businesses: UnitedHealthcare, Ovations, AmeriChoice, Uniprise, OptumHealth, Ingenix and Prescription Solutions. Through its family of businesses, UnitedHealth Group serves more than 70 million individuals nationwide.
About athenahealth
athenahealth is a leading provider of internet-based business services for physician practices. The Company’s service offerings are based on proprietary web-native practice management and electronic medical record (EMR) software, a continuously updated payer knowledge-base and integrated back-office service operations. For more information, visit www.athenahealth.com or call (888) 652-8200.
