PayerView Report Identifies Payers’ Unique Strengths and Limitations in an Evolving Healthcare Marketplace

In addition to annual rankings of top performing payers, Report locates opportunities for communication, transparency and collaboration


WATERTOWN, Mass., May 10, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATHN), a leading provider of network-enabled services and mobile applications for health care providers nationwide, today released its annual PayerView® Report™, a data-driven review of the performance of payers on athenaNet®, athenahealth’s nationwide cloud-based network. The Report delivers insight into the provider-payer relationship and provides a powerful guide for providers as their payer mix shifts to accommodate newly insured patients and enter into risk-based payments.1

This year’s findings, which are based on payers’ performance on a series of athenahealth selected administrative, transactional, and financial metrics, reveal shifts amongst the Report’s historically high-performing payers.  National commercial payer Cigna ranks as #1 in 2016 for the first time, leading the pack amongst a diverse top ten list which includes several payer types.  In a year marked by the continued implementation of health care reform and the accelerating adoption of alternative payment models, some payers struggled to maintain consistent performance while others—particularly several Blues and Medicare Part B payers—maintained performance levels from years past and even improved slightly.

“The accelerating shift to alternative payment models, coupled with the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, has created both challenges and opportunities for payers,” said David Tassoni, SVP for Operations, athenahealth.  “Now, more than ever, payers need to learn from each other and to work with providers and partners to embrace opportunities for transparency and communication.  athenahealth is committed to facilitating this collaboration and transparency through the insights gained from our network, and we plan to implement this knowledge as we work to coach performance for our own payer partners.” 

The 2016 rankings include 29 percent more payers than 2015, which makes PayerView a strong indicator of payer performance nationwide.

“We are thrilled with the number one ranking because it demonstrates that the steps we’ve taken over the past several years to improve the health care provider experience are succeeding,” said Julie Vayer, Cigna's Vice President, Total Health & Network Operations. “However, we recognize that our work is not finished; it is ongoing. We are focused on continuous improvement through collaboration with athenahealth and other organizations that will help us earn the trust of health care providers every day.”

To see the full 2016 PayerView Report, please visit www.athenahealth.com/PayerView.

An infographic accompanying this release is available at: http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5d1f52a8-535d-4a36-8571-75dba9f7206f

Read more about today’s PayerView release, and see how the network’s largest payers ranked this year, by visiting the athenahealth CloudView Blog at www.athenahealth.com/blog

1The rankings and data provided are based solely on actual claims activity captured quarterly in the athenaNet® system from a limited set of physicians and payers.  For additional information regarding the metrics and methodology, please visit www.athenahealth.com/payerview.

About athenahealth, Inc.
athenahealth is a leading provider of network-enabled services for electronic health records (EHR), revenue cycle management and  medical billing, patient engagement, care coordination, and population health management, as well as Epocrates and other point-of-care mobile apps. We connect care and drive meaningful, measurable results for more than 78,000 health care providers nationwide. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com.


            
PayerView Infographic

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