Health care software vendor Avisena is adding Intuit Health's online bill payment and doctor/patient communication tools to its medical billing applications.
Avisena, a practice-management software company,
has announced it will integrate Intuit Health's patient portal into its
existing medical billing software to allow patients to pay their bills online
and communicate electronically with their doctors. With Avisena's software
geared toward the provider's workflow, the Intuit portal will add a way for
patients to pay their bills.
Intuit Health is a division of Intuit,
maker of the popular Quicken and TurboTax personal finance programs. Intuit
formed the division when it bought patient-to-physician provider Medfusion in
2010 and merged it with its Quicken Health Group. More than 4 million patients
and 44,300 providers nationwide use Intuit Health's patient portal, according
to the company.
Avisena aims to help physician
practices collect payments, and by adding the online bill payment features of Intuit's patient portal, it will make the process
more convenient for patients as well, according to Joseph Radigan, CEO of
Avisena.
"The more significant piece for us
includes the ability for a patient to make a payment online," Radigan told
eWEEK. "It's growing in significance because over the last several years
there's been a trend toward more patient responsibility-higher copays, higher
coinsurance levels, not as many covered services, so the patient is responsible
for all of that."
In addition, Avisena's
practice-management software integrates patient billing with EHRs (electronic
health records).
The combined Avisena and Intuit
software will be able to identify the patients responsible for charges and
allow them to review their bills. Through the patient portal, doctors can also
refill prescriptions and share lab results with patients.
With the ability to message doctors
electronically, patients can reduce the amount of phone calls to their office,
Radigan noted. A recent Intuit Health study recently revealed that 73 percent
of patients would use a secure online portal to communicate with their
physician.
New features Intuit brings to the
Avisena software also include virtual card swipe and the ability to create
budget payment plans. Meanwhile, An Ask a Biller feature allows patients to
send questions about their account in an unstructured format and keep a record
of written requests.
With patients able to update their
personal information through the Intuit portal, paperwork on clipboards can be
reduced, Radigan suggested. "With the portal, they can go online at
anytime," he said. "It makes it a lot easier to keep up with the
demographic information."
Based in Miami, Avisena will initially
roll out the expanded software to 50 health care practices in the Southeast in
states such as Florida and Georgia. "Our focus has been to really try to
get a foothold in a more concentrated area than spread ourselves across too
many states," Radigan said.
"Avisena is one of the premier
revenue cycle management, patient reimbursement and medical billing software companies
in the Southeast," Steve Malik, president and general manager of Intuit
Health, said in a statement. "Helping patients understand their medical
bills and offering the convenience of online bill payment can drastically
reduce a practice's outstanding accounts receivables, bad debt expenses and the
number of patient bills going to collection."
Avisena and Intuit announced their
software partnership on Aug. 4. By working with Intuit, health care practices
that use Avisena's software will be able to increase collections and lower
costs, Malik added.
"We spent too much time chasing
our patients for payments during work hours," Gina Delmont, chief
operating officer at The Orthopedic Clinic Association in Phoenix, said in a
statement. "Intuit Health's online bill-payment solution dramatically
improved our collections."
With the portal allowing patients to
interact with staff electronically, the office was able to improve its workflow
and revenue, Delmont added.
Brian T. Horowitz is a freelance technology and health writer as well as a copy editor. Brian has worked on the tech beat since 1996 and covered health care IT and rugged mobile computing for eWEEK since 2010. He has contributed to more than 20 publications, including Computer Shopper, Fast Company, FOXNews.com, More, NYSE Magazine, Parents, ScientificAmerican.com, USA Weekend and Womansday.com, as well as other consumer and trade publications. Brian holds a B.A. from Hofstra University in New York.
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