ATHENAHEALTH LAUNCHES ENHANCED E-PRESCRIBING CAPABILITY ACROSS ITS NATIONAL PHYSICIAN NETWORK TO DRIVE INCREASED REVENUE FOR MEDICAL GROUPS
dditional Surescripts(R) certification and New athenaClinicalsSM Services Enable Physicians to More Easily Participate in HITECH Act and Medicare e-Prescribing Incentive Program
CHICAGO (April 07, 2009) – athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN), a leading provider of internet-based business services to physician practices, today announced at the Annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference in Chicago, that the electronic prescribing, or “e-prescribing,” service component of athenahealth’s centrally-hosted electronic health record (EHR), athenaClinicalsSM, has received additional Surescripts(R) certification for Prescription Benefit and Prescription History information (from payers) and Prescription Routing of new prescriptions to mail order pharmacies. Surescripts operates the country’s largest national electronic prescribing network.
The recently passed HITECH Act will require “meaningful use” of an EHR including more robust e-prescribing and electronic data exchange. More of Surescripts network functionality is now seamlessly tied to athenaClinicals existing e-prescribing features allowing for exchange of prescription benefit, and prescription history at the point of care and an expanded choice of pharmacies for prescription routing in addition to athenaClinicals’ ability to route new prescriptions and manage prescription renewals with retail pharmacies.
athenahealth’s enhanced e-prescribing capability is now fully-integrated across its entire national physician network, athenaNet(R), allowing athenaClinicals users to more easily participate in Medicare’s current e-prescribing incentive program. Launched in 2009, physicians receive increased reimbursement for using a certified e-prescribing system to report specific use of e-prescribing technology.
“With all of our clients sharing the same centrally-hosted practice management and EHR platform, we feel our enhanced e-prescribing capability will allow our athenaClinicals clients to more easily access a patient’s prescription history, and their prescription benefit, allowing them to prescribe medications that are on formulary, thereby reducing the cost to the patient and number of authorizations the medical provider has to sign for off formulary,” said Susan Harmon, Director of Clinical Product Management for athenahealth. “Aside from improving patient care and office workflow, these new e-prescribing capabilities will also drive additional revenue opportunities for our clients with the current Medicare e-prescribing incentive programs and ensuing HITECH Act.”
As part of its Surescripts certification, athenaClinicals users will experience a reduction in the work associated with traditional e-prescribing systems due to new advanced reporting services specifically designed to allow for easier clinical reporting associated with Medicare’s incentive program as well as other state and commercial payer e-prescribing initiatives. athenahealth’s athenaClinicals Document Services Team expects to process fewer prescription authorization documents because of alternative medication choices, or authorizations completed at the point of care. Even if an authorization is generated by the pharmacy, athenahealth’s document service capability makes the approval workflow seamless by queuing up the document to the provider for fast and easy sign off.
For additional information on specifics around the HITECH Act and athenahealth’s EHR and e-prescribing service offering please visit: www.athenahealth.com/HITECHAct
Source: ATHENAHEALTH
