athenahealth Finds Another Taker for athenaCollector System

athenahealth, a leading provider of web-based services, knowledge, and software to medical practices, today announced that The Methodist Hospital System, one of the nation’s leading academic health care organizations, has selected athenahealth’s practice management and billing service, athenaCollector(sm), for its Physician Organization, representing nearly two hundred physicians. Along with athenahealth, the Physician Organization will be using Eclipsys Corporation’s(r) Sunrise Ambulatory Care(tm) offering as part of a new integrated clinical and financial ambulatory care solution to better connect its healthcare enterprise.

"We realize that the ambulatory care setting has very distinct needs and we felt athenahealth’s service-based practice management offering, combined with Eclipsys’ clinical offering, will now enable our physicians to improve the financial operations of their practices while supporting the efficient delivery of clinical information throughout our health care system," said John N. Lyle, Chief Operating Officer of The Methodist Hospital Physician Organization. "In selecting the joint offering of athenahealth and Eclipsys, we believe we are now better positioned to support the growth of our academic enterprise."

"It is refreshing to see an organization like The Methodist Hospital System take a clear industry lead in deploying a unique ambulatory care solution that we believe will improve both the clinical and financial outcomes for its patients and physicians," said Jonathan Bush, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of athenahealth. "With the athenahealth and Eclipsys joint offering, The Methodist Hospital System is now in a position to execute on a new ambulatory strategy and better manage its expanding care delivery system."

The Eclipsys Sunrise Ambulatory Care and athenahealth’s athenaCollector joint offering was announced in July 2006, and delivers a best-of-breed enterprise solution that integrates patients’ clinical records between the outpatient care center and the rest of the enterprise. However, since many physicians want financial autonomy in sharing their financial data with other groups or facilities, the joint offering gives them the power to share clinical data while maintaining the privacy of their financial information — a unique combination of integration and independence that no other vendor is able to provide.

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"Following an on-time, on-budget activation of Eclipsys’ Sunrise Clinical Manager(tm), which included more than 50,000 orders placed by physicians in Eclipsys’ Knowledge-Based CPOE(tm) system within two weeks of going live, The Methodist Hospital System further demonstrates its commitment to leveraging information technology to help improve patient care with the decision to implement the joint Eclipsys and athenahealth solution. By utilizing our combined solution, The Methodist Hospital System can now support all facets of its ambulatory care facilities by better connecting community care providers with their patients and the larger enterprise," said R. Andrew Eckert, Eclipsys President and Chief Executive Officer. "By selecting athenahealth, it is clear that The Methodist Hospital System understands the unique needs of its affiliated physicians and looked to bring them one of the industry’s leading practice management solutions."

Better Results through Knowledge

The Eclipsys and athenahealth partnership extends both companies’ commitment for improving outcomes. Sunrise Ambulatory Care provides clinical decision support at the point of care so clinicians can make safer, more informed decisions about their patients’ diagnosis and ongoing treatment.

athenaCollector is a physician revenue cycle management offering that integrates web-based practice management software, continually updated payer knowledge, and back-office processing specialists into a single service. The athenaCollector rules engine is a real-time database of payer rules and regulations with new rules being continuously added, the claims engine helps catch and correct billing errors before they are submitted in claims and lead to denials. The results can include increased collections, faster reimbursement cycles, and reduced administrative headaches for physician practices.

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The Methodist Hospital System

The Methodist Hospital System, with nearly 10,000 employees, is made up of The Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center, The Methodist Hospital Physician Organization, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, Methodist Willowbrook Hospital and San Jacinto Methodist Hospital in Baytown. Methodist is affiliated with Weill Medical College of Cornell University and New York Presbyterian Hospital. For the past two years, FORTUNE Magazine ranked Methodist as one of top 100 best places to work in United States. The Methodist Hospital consistently is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of America’s best hospitals.