UnitedHealthcare Teams with athenahealth to Improve, Expand RTA Capabilities |
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Written by U.S. Insurance News
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Friday, 04 January 2008 |
Before a patient leaves a doctor’s office, he should know exactly how his medical claim will be paid—and be able to pay for his portion of the services as well.
Before a patient leaves a doctor’s office, he should know exactly how his medical claim will be paid—and be able to pay for his portion of the services as well.
To meet those provider-patient expectations, UnitedHealthcare is joining forces with athenahealth, Inc., which offers Internet-based services for physician practices, to further expand both companies’ real-time claim adjudication (RTA) capabilities.
This alliance will enable physician offices nationwide using athenahealth’s on-demand practice management service to submit UnitedHealthcare claims and receive a fully adjudicated response within seconds, thus showing both office staff and patients how a claim will be paid. This allows the patient to pay for his part of the bill at that moment, thus reducing the need for further paper work and billings.
UnitedHealthcare launched real-time claims processing in January 2007, using its dedicated physician Web site, www.unitedhealthcareonline.com. Athenahealth began its national platform for real-time claims processing in October. Currently, athenahealth submits more than 1.5 million claims annually to UnitedHealthcare and works with medical providers in 33 states.
“In order to streamline the system for physicians and consumers, UnitedHealthcare is advancing technologies that operate on a single platform and can be used by anyone within the health care system,” said Ken Burdick UnitedHealthcare CEO. “By collaborating with athenahealth and expanding the availability of real-time adjudication, we are helping to reduce costs for consumers and physicians and bringing the health care industry a step closer to a more retail-like environment.”
Connecting RTA into athenahealth’s national physician platform expands UnitedHealthcare’s real-time capability to the critical practice management workflow and desktop space. This is a key enhancement, since most doctors’ offices use third-party solutions or dual-submit claims for traditional RTA platforms.
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