WATERTOWN, Mass., June 5, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination, today announced that it will guarantee the ICD-10 transition for new clients who are live before June 30, 2014. This means that by the government's deadline, all new clients on athenahealth's cloud-based practice management, EHR, and patient communications services—athenaCollector®, athenaClinicals®, and athenaCommunicator®—will be ICD-10 compliant or athenahealth will waive its fees until the compliance standard is met. athenahealth will also backstop the revenue cycle for independent practices by providing a cash advance against submitted claims, if those claims are delayed by payers in the ICD-10 transition period.
ICD-10 is an updated set of procedure and medical diagnosis codes that all health care providers must use by October 1, 2014. The new, more granular code set is one of the largest transformations the industry will experience, making it a top concern for today's caregivers. Early findings from the Physician Sentiment Index™, an athenahealth and Epocrates annual survey of more than 1,200 U.S. physicians to be released later this Summer, reveal that about 33 percent of physicians are "not at all confident" or "not very confident" in their practice's ability to make a smooth transition to ICD-10 requirements.
In light of physicians' low level of confidence, athenahealth is guaranteeing ICD-10 readiness. Specifically, athenahealth will monitor staff progression, payer testing, lab testing, clearinghouse testing, and take on other ICD-10 related work to ensure its clients thrive through the coding transition. "ICD-10 ready" means that athenaCollector and athenaClinicals clients will be able to send ICD-10 compliant claims irrespective of individual payer readiness and easily select ICD-10 diagnosis codes in athenaClinicals, while athenahealth works diligently to get claims adjudicated in a timely manner. Should athenahealth not be able to meet these conditions, the company would waive all fees until such time that it is compliant.
"Given the complexity of ICD-10 and the inherent challenges associated with change in general, my staff and I can't help but worry about and wonder how disruptive the transition will be," said Dr. Peter Masucci, a Massachusetts-based pediatrician. "Fortunately, athenahealth continues to serve as the backbone of our practice, not only supporting but taking on the brunt of our administrative burdens, first with ANSI 5010 and Meaningful Use, and now ICD-10. This guarantee gives me confidence that the ICD-10 transition for my practice will come and go without struggle. I feel like we can worry less about disruption to patient care, operational workflows, and cash flow and focus fully on care delivery."
Jonathan Bush, CEO and chairman, athenahealth, said "The ICD-10 mandate is one of the biggest administrative challenges presented to caregivers, ever, and our goal is to get our clients through it easily and with little disruption. Our past experiences and successes in managing ANSI 5010 and Meaningful Use, along with the flexibility of our cloud-based services and back-end knowledge of our services' teams, uniquely positions us to take on ICD-10. While the guarantee says, yes, we'll get you to ICD-10 or you don't have to pay for it, what it really conveys is our commitment to results. Our model is all about going at risk for our clients' results, having skin in the game – and that's what this guarantee is all about."
For more information on athenahealth and details of our ICD-10 guarantee, please visit: http://www.athenahealth.com/ICD-10/ICD-10-guarantee.php or follow us on our blog, Twitter, and Facebook.
About athenahealth, Inc.
athenahealth is a leading provider of cloud-based services for EHR, practice management, and care coordination. athenahealth's mission is to be caregivers' most trusted service, helping them do well doing the right thing. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com or call 888-652-8200.