WILLIAMSBURG, Va. and WATERTOWN, Mass., Aug. 30, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc., a provider of internet-based business services for physician practices, today announced that Practice Management Associates, Inc. (PMA), a leading emergency department management company, has selected athenahealth's practice management and billing service, athenaCollector(sm), for several of PMA's hospital emergency departments and clinics throughout the Southeast including Virginia, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Combined, PMA's facilities handle over 220,000 patient visits per year.
"Physician practices are generally not well equipped to address the growing complexity of payer reimbursement, which is only exacerbated in the emergency department setting. We needed a truly flexible practice management and billing service that would enable our physicians and staff to properly track and document medical information for accurate reimbursement and collections," said Dr. Brian Clare, President of PMA. "Having used software-only offerings in the past, we believe athenahealth's service-based approach and national network of thousands of medical providers will provide PMA with critical real-time patient and proprietary payer information along with unique data capture and reporting capabilities."
athenahealth's proprietary web-native practice management and EMR application, athenaNet(r), is a workflow management tool used in a medical practice's every work step that is required to properly handle billing, collections and medical record management-related functions. All users across athenahealth's national client base simultaneously use the same version of the software application, which connects them to the Company's continuously updated payer knowledge-base, athenaRules(sm), and virtual back-office service teams.
"Given our current strategic growth plan, teaming up with athenahealth's national network will allow PMA to harness the collective knowledge of our customers, assisting physicians practicing emergency medicine and their patients," continued Dr. Clare.
athenaRules, athenahealth's proprietary knowledge-base of national payer reimbursement rules, is designed to enforce physician office workflow requirements, and is continuously updated with payer-specific coding and documentation information. This knowledge continues to grow as a result of athenahealth's years of experience managing back office service operations for thousands of physicians, including processing medical claims with tens of thousands of health benefit plans.
"We are thrilled that PMA has selected athenahealth to be the backbone of their billing and practice management functions as we feel the emergency room departments in this country are at a crossroads. They face growing patient flow in trauma care and an increasingly complex reimbursement environment," said Todd Park, Chief Development Officer for athenahealth. "Given athenahealth's award-winning software, expanding payer knowledge-base and service operations, we are uniquely positioned to help emergency departments as they look to automate and streamline their operations."
About Practice Management Associates, Inc.
Practice Management Associates (PMA) is a leading emergency department management company based in Williamsburg, Virginia. PMA specializes in coding, billing, and collecting activities for emergency departments at leading hospitals and also provides specialized consulting services addressing the unique practice of emergency medicine.
About athenahealth, Inc.
athenahealth, Inc. provides internet-based business services for physician practices. The Company's integrated service offerings are based on proprietary internet-based practice management and electronic medical record (EMR) software, a continually updated payer knowledge-base and back-office service operations. For more information visit www.athenahealth.com or call (888) 652-8200.