Electronic Health Reporter

athenahealth, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination, today announced its 2013 Medicare Meaningful Use Stage 1 attestation rate among providers who use athenaClinicals, athenahealth’s award-winning EHR. 95.4 percent of the company’s participating providers successfully attested for Meaningful Use Stage 1 in 2013, showing athenahealth’s continued execution against the industry’s only Meaningful Use Guarantee for successful attestations.

The company’s online Meaningful Use dashboard, a visibility tool showing the performance of health care providers on the athenahealth network against all Meaningful Use measures, has been updated to include Meaningful Use Stage 2 measure performance and will be updated monthly through the end of the calendar year.

“athenahealth’s unique combination of cloud-based software, network knowledge, and back-office work means our providers are supported every step of the way,” said Todd Rothenhaus, M.D., chief medical officer and senior vice president of network knowledge, athenahealth. “We make Meaningful Use simple by embedding measures right into the EHR workflow, coaching, and even attesting on our clients’ behalves—something no other vendor does—so they can focus on patient care and receive their incentive payments as quickly as possible. We are proving once again that technology doesn’t have to slow health care providers down. Our clients are thriving despite change, earning incentive dollars, avoiding looming penalties, and improving the delivery of care for millions of patients across the United States.”

athenahealth’s ONC 2014 Edition Certified Complete EHR, athenaClinicals 14.3, provides a highly-nimble and future-proof service to health care providers at organizations of all sizes. To ensure its clients’ success, athenahealth introduced Meaningful Use Stage 2 workflows in athenaClinicals beginning in October 2013, along with updated training materials, so clients could prepare in advance of the January 1, 2014, start date. These early preparation measures, as well as athenahealth’s unique ability to monitor real-time client performance and provide live coaching, have proven highly effective, as indicated by athenahealth clients’ strong overall performance on the Meaningful Use Stage 2 dashboard.

“One of the things athenahealth does best is facilitate compliance with government requirements for Meaningful Use,” said Suzin Hagar, M.D., a family practitioner with Medford Medical Clinic in Medford, Oregon. “athenahealth manages to collect and document the necessary information for Meaningful Use in the background so that practices can meet their goals almost effortlessly. By providing tracking of these requirements, a provider can see at any time if there are outstanding items that need to be addressed. Because of how athenahealth works within my practice, I need to dedicate only about five minutes a year to Meaningful Use in order to meet government standards. What’s more, athenahealth successfully mines data that would be extraordinarily complex and labor intensive for a provider or practice to collate—something that was impossible for us in our legacy system—and makes this data collection and reporting a background process.”

“athenahealth makes Meaningful Use so simple,” said Amber Shamburger, M.D., an obstetrician and gynecologist at Friendswood Women in Friendswood, Texas. “I simply follow prompts from an intuitive dashboard built right into the EHR—which takes next to no time—and then my Meaningful Use dollars arrive. Because of this simple process, I have much more time to focus on patient care, where my time belongs. athenaCommunicator®, the patient portal, is also a huge time-saver that not only makes the patient experience more seamless, but also helps engage patients before and after they come to my office. My patients schedule their appointments online and fill out pre-check-in forms ahead of their visit, something they find far better than phone tag; it also reduces miscommunications. Using the portal after the visit, they can email me directly to ask any follow-up questions, view their care summaries, and keep their health information electronically rather than on paper—all of which are requirements for Meaningful Use.”

Since the 2009 introduction of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, athenahealth has been working closely with its clients to help ensure their full compliance with the requirements of the Medicare and Medicaid incentive program. Through its single instance, cloud-based EHR, athenahealth has a real-time view into how its providers are performing. This enables the company to identify client pain points and focus its array of client services on addressing these challenges across its network.

athenahealth is the only service to offer eligible providers a Meaningful Use guarantee for either Stage 1 or Stage 2 attestations.

Visitors to http://www.athenahealth.com/meaningful-use.php can explore all Meaningful Use Stage 1 and Stage 2 measures, view the up-to-date performance of athenahealth’s physicians on each measure, and learn what steps athenahealth is taking, measure by measure, to help its clients achieve success.

About athenahealth, Inc.

athenahealth is a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health record (EHR), practice management, and care coordination. athenahealth’s mission is to be caregivers’ most trusted service, helping them do well doing the right thing. For more information, please visit www.athenahealth.com.