CONNECTICUT STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY JOINS WITH ATHENAHEALTH TO OFFER ON-DEMAND PRACTICE MANAGEMENT SERVICES TO PHYSICIANS STATEWIDE

Thirteenth State Medical Society to Promote athenahealth to Member Physicians

NEW HAVEN, Conn. & WATERTOWN, Mass. (May 02, 2008) – athenahealth, Inc., (Nasdaq: ATHN), a leading provider of Internet-based business services to physician practices, and the Connecticut State Medical Society (CSMS), the state’s largest medical physician organization, today announced an agreement to offer athenahealth’s centrally-hosted on-demand practice management services to more than 7,000 CSMS physician members to drive their practices’ operational and financial outcomes. Under the terms of the agreement, CSMS members will receive a discount on athenahealth’s practice management service, athenaCollector(SM).

“athenahealth is a medical practice service resource that fully integrates all facets of practice management, billing and collections. CSMS believes athenahealth will help our members run more efficient practices and better serve patients,” explains Angelo S. Carrabba, M.D., President of CSMS.

athenahealth’s on-demand practice management and billing service, athenaCollector(SM), integrates web-based practice management software, a continually updated payer rules knowledgebase and back-office processing specialists into a single service. athenahealth’s services allow physician practices to optimize collections under new reimbursement trends in the marketplace, such as pay-for-performance (P4P) programs and consumer-directed health care plans, while helping to ensure compliance with best-practice guidelines.

“Leveraging athenahealth’s services have streamlined our practice’s operations by reducing overall redundancies, helping staff members take task ownership and become more self-sufficient. We believe that the athenaNet(R) system’s Payment Mismatch Tracking Wizard, Performance Reviews, and Codesource are ‘must-have’ features for today’s medical practice,” stated Debbie De Carlo, Practice Manager of Hartford Cardiac Laboratory, P.C., an eight physician cardiology practice and CSMS member.

“Over the past year, we have seen a 22 percent increase in revenue collected since going live with athenahealth,” said Barbara Ziogas, M.D., a solo private practice pediatrician and also a CSMS member. “With this influx of cash flow we have been able to better utilize our staff which has helped to alleviate some of the administrative work load and allowed us to spend more time with our patients, which is our primary goal.”

“Physician practices across Connecticut and the nation are facing an increasingly complex payer reimbursement environment that can erode their productivity and profitability,” said Nancy Brown, Senior Vice President of Business Development for athenahealth. “We are thrilled to be working with CSMS and they should be applauded for realizing that one of the greatest challenges facing their member physicians is dealing with the ever changing insurance rules that dictate the format and content – as well as the submission and remittance guidelines – of medical claims.”

Source: Athenahealth