PORTLAND, Ore. and WATERTOWN, Mass., Feb. 19, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (Nasdaq:ATHN), a leading provider of internet-based business services for physician practices, today announced that Therapeutic Associates, Inc. (TAI) will deploy athenahealth's on-demand practice management and billing service at its outpatient facilities in the Pacific Northwest as it looks to enhance operational workflow, financial performance and provider connectivity across its care delivery organization. TAI is one of the nation's leading physical therapy and rehabilitation organizations with over 150 medical providers and more than 65 locations across the Western United States.
"One immediate benefit gained by using a network-based system like athenahealth's is we feel it will enable our practices to focus more on care delivery and less on the business of healthcare," said Todd Gifford, Director of Information Systems for TAI. "Leveraging the national athenaNet(r) platform will reduce demands on our staff, so resources can be focused on improving our operational efficiencies and medical billing outcomes rather than consumed on the labor-intensive and tedious processes of continually tracking changing regulations, reimbursement, quality indicators and reporting requirements."
"Today, athenahealth's centrally-hosted athenaNet platform has the nation's largest payer reimbursement process rules database firing in real-time across our entire national client base," said Rob Cosinuke, Chief Marketing Officer for athenahealth. "This allows our clients to experience a network effect in which shared knowledge drives better operational and financial outcomes. Beyond delivering better financial results, we also free our clients from day-to-day hassles, so they can focus on patient care."
Gifford continued, "Achieving true connectivity is a primary goal of any large care delivery organization. With all athenahealth clients using the same practice management application, all of our practice sites across three states will be fully connected the moment we go live on athenaNet."
As part of athenahealth's practice management and billing service, athenaCollector, athenahealth has built in a proprietary knowledge-base of payer reimbursement process rules, called athenaRules(sm), which is designed to enforce physician office workflow requirements, which is updated continually with payer-specific coding and documentation information. Given the current demands on physician practices, athenaRules works in concert with athenahealth's internet-based application and its integrated back-office service team to act as a national utility that proactively guides office staff away from making mistakes that impact the performance and profitability of their business.
About Therapeutic Associates, Inc.
Therapeutic Associates is a leading therapist owned and directed rehabilitation company, providing the finest physical therapy and occupational therapy services for more than fifty-five years in the Western United States. Therapeutic Associates' therapists work daily with thousands of patients at 65 outpatient clinics and contract locations. Therapeutic Associates is also a management organization with unique and varied capabilities, striving to offer creative and innovative delivery systems to both patients and clients involved in the business of healthcare. For more information visit www.therapeuticassociates.com or call (800) 219-8835.
About athenahealth
athenahealth is the leading provider of internet-based business services for physician practices. The Company's service offerings are based on proprietary internet-based practice management and electronic medical record (EMR) software, a continuously updated payer knowledge-base and integrated back-office service operations. For more information visit www.athenahealth.com or call (888) 652-8200.
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the benefits of the athenahealth's service offerings. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. In particular, the risks and uncertainties include, among other things: the risk that our services offerings will not operate in the manner that we expect, due to design flaws, security breaches or otherwise; potential interruptions or delays in our internet-based services offerings; our reliance upon third parties, such as computer hardware, software, data-hosting and internet infrastructure providers, which reliance may result in failures or disruptions in our service offerings; errors or omissions included in our payer and clinical intelligence rules engine and database; and the evolving and complex government regulatory compliance environment in which we and our clients operate. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. athenahealth, Inc. undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise. For additional disclosure regarding these and other risks faced by athenahealth, Inc., see the disclosure contained in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its investor relations website at http://www.athenahealth.com and on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov, including athenahealth's most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2007.