Practice Management Alert

Plus, WellPoint settles with California hospitals, to the tune of $11.8 million At the end of May, Athenahealth released the third annual PayerView(SM) Rankings. Aetna took the top spot, ranking number one among national payers for its business dealings with physicians. Athenahealth found that Aetna had the lowest DAR (days in accounts receivable) as well as the lowest denial rate. Last year's number one payer, Cigna, slipped to second place. This year's rankings used Athenahealth claims performance data from more than 12,000 medical providers representing more than 30 million medical charge lines for all of 2007. You can review the entire 2008 PayerView Rankings, which evaluates 137 national, regional and government payers, at http://www.AthenaPayerView.com. In Other News: Indianapolis-based WellPoint, the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross, agreed to pay $11.8 million to settle claims with 480 California hospitals that were suing the payer. The settlement is the result of legal action by the hospitals which accused WellPoint of refusing to pay the hospitals for services performed for patients who were dropped after treatment. The practice is called rescission. The patients made allegations that Anthem Blue Cross improperly investigated their medical histories for evidence of preexisting conditions after the patients submitted costly medical bills, the Los Angeles Times reported.