Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Athena PM

So, let me start by saying how much I love AC. I have been with AC for many years now, I forget how many but probably close to the beginning. However, my new office manager came to me with a well prepared presentation and asked us to consider switching our practice to Athena PM, including the clinical portion of their cloud based EMR. He is sure it will improve efficiency, flow, allow us to eliminate 1, maybe 2 FTE (full time employees), increase revenue, and take away the headache of managing / maintaining / upgrading AC. We would no longer have to worry about accessing the EMR at different locations as long as we had internet access, and I could even access the data with their nifty but limited iphone app and (currently in development) ipad app. He put me in touch with Athena who gave me a nice presentation of their services and EMR (which LOOKS impressive, intuitive, and flexible, but I have not tried it hands on), and now I have spoken with two physicians who use Athena and are pleased with it (These were physicians NOT referred by Athena, but referred by a friend of my office manager who is a manager at a large practice in a nearby city) No bad words yet. So I ask the question in this forum since I have been with AC for so many years, any current or past users of Athena? Anyone know why I shouldn't switch? Yes, I know I can still use AC along with Athena as the PM but that kind of gets us back to a mix and match, inefficient patchwork which is what my office manager is trying to move away from. I also know AC is soon to come up with its new PM, but I have heard that for a year now and still nothing concrete, although I will look into it as soon as available. I have also hear the warnings of cloud based computing and how you don't "own" your data. Athena assures me that my data is mine and will provide the data, along with a way of accessing the data for free if we chose to part ways. There is no long term contract, basically you go month by month and they charge a percentage on NET collections which is negotiable. Any thoughts are appreciated.

"they charge a percentage on NET collections which is negotiable."

Would be a deal breaker for me. Won't let anybody to count my money for me.

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?

EasyRider and Nephros, Thanks for your inputs. As I understand it, we count our money. In fact, part of the reason we are looking at Athena is that the breath and quality of the reporting is much more robust than we currently have available. My office manager thinks we would have much better usable data as to where our money is that we currently get from our current biller. Like Nephros says, the money is put in a lock box. I did not know they take their cut first, will check into it. I thought they billed us and we paid, but then again we are still in the early part of the evaluation. Trust is a big word I agree. Which is why I am asking around to current or previous users to see what kind of experience they have. I have also posted in Sermo and I plan to do so in Doximity as well. My manager also received input from colleagues in a medical office manager forum; so far he tells me the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. Every bit of knowledge or opinion you wish to share is appreciated. Also, this is not a done deal, I am just looking at options. However, I am, so far, very impressed. Merry Xmas / Happy Holidays to all.

Gerardo,

You raise some interesting questions, and I think that it is healthy to look at the practice from a business model perspective, and run the numbers.

To be clear - disclaimer - we we do offer services in this marketplace.

That said, we formed the business unit that services practices this year out of our enterprise services group because we saw the need for low-friction services specialized for medical practices.

Running AC for practices that are multi-location is challenging, and requires both infrastructure and skilled maintenance. We offer a managed environment instead of Hosted because we work hard to put (and keep) "the magic in the box".

The other significant issue is the reporting and value that you are getting out of your biller. We have identified a few outfits that we work with that are more Revenue Cycle Management focused, provide the reporting and resources, and work well with AC.

So, there are resources available to you that offer you alternatives short of leaving AC behind.

At the same time Athena is making a splash, and I'm interested in hearing what you learn.

My final two cents on this topic.
If a business deal involves the word "trust" - just walk away and feel good that you avoided a disaster.

Again, I appreciate your input.

@EasyRider: We trust people everyday. We trust that cars will stop at red lights. We trust that the restaurant will serve us good, clean food. I see people trusting me every day when I walk through the door of the hospital room and I can see it in their eyes when they look at my white coat and look reassured: the doctor is here. They trust me to make the right decision for them. If I say they need surgery, they inquire as to the reason and alternatives, but in the end they trust me to not put my pocketbook ahead of their well being. Trust is necessary for us to live in the world we live in. Having said that, I am not naive. After all, we trust our government to look out for the interest of all of us... I can't say that this is the case today... But even then I trust that our president has the best intentions in mind, although misguided in my opinion...

On the other hand, I am not against other people making a profit. I do not expect others to make a sacrifice to keep me alive, business wise or "anything else" wise. If I want the best, I am willing to pay for the best. My business motto is "everyone wins". I do not want to make a profit at the expense of other people. I want to make a profit when the other person also profits from my work. A win-win scenario if you will. So, I do not mind if AC or Athena makes a profit, as long as it is beneficial to both of us. If they provide value to me, I would hope they would obtain profit from me. Otherwise why do it? for the benefit of humanity? Humanity starts with you and your family.

But I do apologize for posting this topic the evening of Xmas. It goes to show how much medicine, and the business of medicine, has permeated my life, and I suspect your lives as well. I hope you all enjoy a very Merry Christmas in the company of your loved ones. Give them an extra hug. They are, after all, the reason we are here.

Athena Health is running seminars around the country for docs, hawking their products & services. I attended one in my area. Talk to a rep in your office and get a free Kindl (sounds like the way that sales people hook the seniors into Medicare Advantage -- a free Denny's breakfast).

The Powerpoints are big on promises, short on details on how it works for the individual practice. Hammered away at the urgency to get on board for the Meaningful Use cash soon. Question and answers could be summarized as "lets talk in the office". Is this how it works when I call for assistance too?

No access to trying the cloud-based EHR on line, no open access to user forums to see the comments. I guess I've been spoiled by AC, but this is a real turn-off. Who are these people, the CIA? What do they have to hide?

My office manager played the game, spoke to a sales rep. Their vaunted billing systems, which "learns" to react to denials and clean up claims, is a one trick pony. One attempt to submit a claim, no second try, mail a letter to the patient, all done...move on.

I can't extend any "trust" if there isn't any openness and honesty.

Interesting. That was going to be my next step... You are correct on openness and honesty. That makes me worry.

AthenaHealth's cloud-based EHR also has some limitations with Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is a big issue with those of us who use DNS. However, the Athena rep I spoke to wasn't aware of this. So be careful...

Gerardo,
Of all of the EMR sorting and ranking sites that I have seen, the one that seems most worthwhile is AmericanEHR.com. You can quickly sign up for free.
You can sign up for free and then rank and compare products using different filters. Like all ratings, these are rather subjective, but they seem to be based on a reasonable number of reviewers and criteria. You can also look at the AAFP polls, which are also well-done, but given your specialty, you may prefer AmericanEHR.
To summarize, based on 91 raters of AC and 46 of Athena, AC is ranked higher in EVERY category except billing. Not just a little higher, but a lot higher. That is on 12 different criteria, ranging from overall usability and satisfaction to eprescribing to support/training/implementation.
I know you have posted on Sermo; in addition to the current responses, be sure to search through the older ones regarding details of issues like access to old data if you leave, and aggressiveness (or lack of it) of their billing efforts.
As noted above, allowing a free trial of the software, and making the user board public, are bold and self-assured moves that AC has made and stuck with; Athena has not. Why not ask for access to their user board, at least for a trial period? If they deny that, personally I would assume that they are hiding something.

Please keep us updated on your search.

I asked my office manager to get me access to their "official user forum"
I was given access to this:

Blog

Obviously this is a blog which I assume is edited / vetted by Athena before being published, although my office manager was told anyone can post. I do not find it very useful or trustworthy. If anyone has a link to a real user forum it would be appreciated.

@ryanjo. I have read the forum tread you posted to, most are old post, some new ones suggest that athena works well with dragon. An example is one of the latest posts I read at the tread from a user name dfred123 on 04/06/2012 10:53 PM.

I type fast so use of Dragon is not an issue, but I was told by the Athena representative that it works well with dragon.

Meanwhile I have spoken with two local docs that use athena and are happy withit, but they only use the billing portion not the EMR. Unfortunately none use AC so I do not know if AC works well with Athena. On the other hand, what we are trying to do is move to a more efficient platform were data does not have to be redundantly entered into different programs....

I wish AC would speed up the development of their PM.

@JBS:

Thanks for your input. I will look into AmericanEHR.com.

Update:

After a thorough and careful evaluation, I decided to go with Athena. My staff / office manager diligently followed their "12 weeks implementation roadmap" to implement Athena. Saw many webinars online to get ready. Went "live" two Mondays ago. I hated it. Office staff hated it. Spoke with their Manager and EMR specialist who very candidly told me their EMR was in "it's infancy." I was told Athena EMR was fully customizable, which it is, but only as long as you want to customize it the way they want you to. Essentially I was lied to at the beginning. Lesson learned. I fired them this afternoon. Back to AC. It is so clear that Athena is designed by administrators for administrators. So when is AC's Practice Manager coming out? I need a drink. Taking my office staff out tomorrow as mea culpa.

An Athena rep contacted me 2 yrs ago re a PM option - I told them I was waiting for the AC PM component. The rep actually took note and called me 2 months ago asking if I were still looking (good sales). The EMR component is athenaClinical. The PM is athenaCollector they have a patient portal component as well. They are novice re EMRs however they have been doing billing for years. I had neither financial nor functional reasons to consider their EMR.

Were you disappointed with their PM component as well as the EMR?

On demo, the PM appeared very functional (it is their "core competency") I have not signed up b/c 1. there is a fee to interface with AC. 2. their are some "free" basic billing software to review. 3. I soooo desperately hope that AC will produce a functional PM component or partner.

Gino

Now is your chance to write an entry for the Athena blog. Let's see if they post it.

Can't comment much on the PM part,seemed good and my office manager really liked it. However the % they wanted for all 3 was 5.8% of collections. Too high to keep if not using EMR. We reverted back to our old system. I would consider using Athena for billing IF % decreased and they did not charge fee for interface. Again, I am also waiting on AC, for a bit.