OhioHealth Expanding Relationship with athenahealth, Selects athenaCommunicator® to Enhance Patient Communication and Accessibility

Published on Friday, 18 November 2011 09:05 Written by TradersHuddle Staff

WATERTOWN, Mass.-( Business Wire )-

athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based business services for physician practices, today announced that OhioHealth, a family of not-for-profit hospitals and healthcare organizations consisting of more than 900 physicians serving patients throughout a 40-county area in Ohio since 1891, has selected athenaCommunicator, athenahealth’s patient communication service. athenaCommunicator is designed to manage patient interactions triggered by practice staff or by automated routines within athenaNet^®, athenahealth's cloud-based platform. This implementation expands on a successful relationship with OhioHealth, who have been using athenahealth’s revenue cycle management service, athenaCollector^®, since 2003.

OhioHealth’s decision to implement athenaCommunicator for its growing network of physicians was a result of their interest in harnessing the volumes of data accessible through athenaCollector to further improve collection services and patient communications. Still in the early days of using athenaCommunicator, OhioHealth has been able to positively impact patient convenience and satisfaction, as well as reduce workload demands across their multi-organization system.

At its core, athenaCommunicator goes well beyond medical scheduling software as it improves all patient interactions outside the office walls, ultimately paving the way for improved access, care, and profitability while reducing staff time across the patient workflow.

Mark Wuestewald, Director, Revenue Cycle for OhioHealth, said, “We have experienced a significant increase in our business every year for the last three years, and, based on our current strategic plan, we expect this trend to continue. The accelerated growth within our network of physician practices forced us to look at options for generating positive care outcomes at a lower cost. athenaCommunicator promotes an integrated approach for patients to access and manage their appointment and financial options with more personal control, and with this service, OhioHealth practitioners can tap into features such as coordinated self-pay collections and automated after-hours appointment reminders to effectively communicate with patients, not only during a visit but when that patient is outside the walls of the exam room. The fact that we are able to build and further customize this product based on the individual needs of our diverse practices, as well as the corporate collective effort, proves the excellence in level of insight and ingenuity at athenahealth.”

Jonathan Bush, Chairman and CEO of athenahealth, added, “We admire OhioHealth for taking the next steps to streamline their operations and improve care coordination by harnessing athenahealth’s services that at the root are uniquely positioned because they operate utilizing the Internet, not as a stagnant piece of software that’s unable to be updated in real-time. OhioHealth has been a trusted business partner for years, and we are excited to continue to work closely with them throughout the implementation process and look forward to improved communication between their providers and patients.”

For complete details on the athenaCommunicator service, please visit http://www.athenahealth.com/our-services/athenaCommunicator.php.

About OhioHealth

OhioHealth is a nationally recognized, not-for-profit, charitable, healthcare organization serving and supported by the community. Named by Thomson Reuters as one of the 10 best healthcare systems in America three years in a row, OhioHealth has also been recognized by FORTUNE Magazine as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Based in Columbus, Ohio, it is a family of 21,000 associates, physicians and volunteers, 18 hospitals, 23 health and surgery centers, home-health providers, medical equipment and health service suppliers throughout a 40-county area. OhioHealth member hospitals include Riverside Methodist Hospital, Grant Medical Center, Doctors Hospital-Columbus, Grady Memorial Hospital, Dublin Methodist Hospital, Doctors Hospital-Nelsonville, Hardin Memorial Hospital and Marion General Hospital. For more information, please visit our website at www.ohiohealth.com.

About athenahealth

athenahealth, Inc. is a leading provider of cloud-based business services for physician practices. athenahealth's service offerings are based on proprietary web-native practice management and electronic health record (EHR) software, a continuously updated payer knowledge-base, integrated back-office service operations, and care coordination services. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com or call (888) 652-8200.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the anticipated benefits and potential for use of athenahealth’s service offerings. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. In particular, the risks and uncertainties include, among other things: the risk that our service offerings will not operate in the manner that we expect, due to design flaws, security breaches, or otherwise; potential interruptions or delays in our internet-based service offerings; our reliance upon third parties, such as computer hardware, software, data-hosting, and internet infrastructure providers, which reliance may result in failures or disruptions in our service offerings; errors or omissions included in our payer and clinical intelligence rules engine and database; and the evolving and complex government regulatory compliance environment in which we and our clients operate. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. athenahealth undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances, or otherwise. For additional disclosure regarding these and other risks faced by athenahealth, please see the disclosure contained in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, available on the Investors section of our website at http://www.athenahealth.com and on the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov.

athenahealth, Inc.MediaJohn Hallock, 617-402-1428Director, Corporate Communicationsmedia@athenahealth.comorInvestorsJennifer Heizer, 617-402-1322Director, Investor This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.