# Athena Health?



## Kisalyn (May 31, 2013)

Last I found about this comapny was posted in 2012. Does anyone have any opinions on them? I'm interested in hearing about any of their products.

Much appreciated.


----------



## BrieG13 (May 31, 2013)

*Athena Health*

Hi there,

Our company is switching to Athena Health in the middle of July. We have just started training. So far, it seems that they take a huge work load off of the office staff and they also have a very conveinent patient portal. I know that they can customize the program to suit your practice needs. 

I am excited to see how it will be when we go live. I can give some more insite then.


----------



## insight (Jun 4, 2013)

How about cost? I have heard good things about this company. 
Is this a good system for a small group, 7 providers total. 5 of them are alternative providers.


----------



## sawhitt (Aug 21, 2013)

*Athena health*

We have been with Athena since 2008-billing added Clinical EMR in 2010 and now Communicator this Summer.   I have written and edited our EMR with ease.  Because it is cloud based there are no fees with the monthly updates.  Their customer service reps are patient and knowledgable.   We have 9 physician groups time sharing in our office al using different EMR programs. Several of them are on their second and third EMR.  I can't imagine going thru that transition again.  
Our staff attends  their yearly conference which is a huge help giving us more networking and one on one opportunities.   
Can not say enough about them. Very satisfied


----------



## RFoster1 (Aug 22, 2013)

*Athena Health*

I managed a revenue cycle team at a company who used AthenaHealth.  There were things about Athena that I liked but there were many things that concerned me.  The account reps were very helpful but we had issues that remained unresolved.

Payments were posted late even though we were promised a posting date of 5 days upon receipt of the eob.

Reports are difficult to manage, as the meaning of the parameters are not clear.  It seems that many of the client support team members are also uncertain of how reports pull information.  I attached a brief screen shot of some of the parameters.  It's possible that smaller offices may not have these problems provided the AR is set up correctly initially but we had many offices with multiple specialties and it was a nightmare.

In case the image doesn't show up large enough to read, some of these parameters are:

Patient Department Specialty
Patient Department Group
Patient Department
Service Department Group
Service Department Type
Service Department
Rendering Provider
Provider Specialty
Provider Reporting Name
Supervising Provider
Provider Group
Referring Provider
Referring Provider Group
Procedure Group
Procedure Code

Also, they were adjusting payable charges as 'global'.  I would assume this came from a high turnover of their staff with less than adequate training in posting eobs.


----------



## sueskuhn (Aug 26, 2013)

*AthenaHealth experience*

I used AthenaHealth when working for an Orthopedic surgeon.   The payment posting/adjustments weren't what they should have been.  Medicare deductibles were adjusted off and not sent to the secondary carrier. The denial of second and third procedures NEVER questioned.  
The communication documented was poor regarding what they were doing on the back end.
Workers comp was the worst - unless AthenaHealth has changed in the past 4 yrs - you could not document appropriately all that you needed to for NYS Workers Comp.
After trying to work with AthenaHealth on making positive corrective changes, we switched to eClinical Works - much happier. 
AthenaHealth stated to the physician that they didnt' think a 3% error rate was bad with claims.  I wanted to ask that VP if he minded that 3% of his pay be deducted.


----------



## dclark7 (Aug 27, 2013)

I worked with AthenaHealth in both cardiology and orthopedic offices.  As others have stated there were good points and bad points.  for me the bad outweighed the good.  As sueskuhn stated the payments many times were not posted appropriately.  Assistant surgeon claims were posted to the surgeons charge and then his payments was shown as overpayments from the insurance company.  In the cardiology office when secondary payments came in the primary adjustments were reveresed and then bills were sent to the patients.

The nice thing was that the EMR was tied to the billing system so things were easy to trace back.  It wa also very easy to attach notes since we did have the EMR (cardiology office).  We did have them add a disclaimer to the EMR that the codes listed might not refelct the final bill due to prebilling audits. Checking eligibility was also very easy.  I haven't used Athena for about two years, so I don't know about any recent updates.


----------



## Cyndi113 (Aug 27, 2013)

I love Athena!! My last employer (90 days ago) used Athena and I miss it terribly! Charges were easy to post, accts were easy work. We did have the global write off problem. However, we had someone work that report and were able to correct those charges that should not have been written off. Having Code Correct built in and all of the referenc/research material right at my fingertips was a HUGE bonus for us. Reports were easy to build and maintain and communication back to the physicians and offices was great. I think that 3% error rate is not acceptable and can't tell you what ours was but I still loved working with such an easy system.


----------

