Athena claims to go after insurance companies better than you or your office staff can (they do have the infrastructure to do so) and claim to increase your revenue because of this, that more than offsets their fees.
We had a grant funded initiative in this area that partially funded small PCP offices acquisition of ECW EMR coupled with Athena PM. (As the Geek on the board of the grantee organization, I visited ECW and Athena headquarters (in Boston, in a December) and saw their operations.)
The PCP's seem to be satisfied with this arrangement, but I haven't heard about (nor asked about) increased revenues.
Having said that, (at the time that our local initiative started) Athena collects your payments in a lock box, takes their cut and then you get the rest. You also pay the same % on what you directly collect in the office.
So when they say "trust us", you REALLY have to.
IM(never)HO doubt that an "integrated" PM/EMR would be so much better than simply sending billing reports out of AC to Athena that it would be worth the effort on your part to CHANGE EMRs just so your office manager would be happier. I guess my question is: who works for whom?
