Mountain Lakes to implement Netsmart's clinical and practice management behavioral health software solution

Netsmart Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of software and services for health and human services organizations, today announced an agreement to provide its CCHIT-certified clinical and practice management behavioral health software and related services to Mountain Lakes Behavioral Healthcare of Guntersville, Ala.

Mountain Lakes provides outpatient and residential mental health and substance abuse treatment services for adults, older adults and veterans. The company serves 5,000 clients across five facilities in northern Alabama.

A Netsmart customer since 2000, Mountain Lakes is transitioning from Netsmart's CMHC/MIS software to the company's Avatar software suite. In making the transition, Mountain Lakes took advantage of Netsmart programs designed to help organizations utilize software platforms within the Netsmart family of software solutions that best meet their needs and requirements.

Mountain Lakes will use the Avatar CCHIT-certified clinical solution and practice management capabilities as the foundation for its operations, including scheduling, assessments, treatment planning, billing and state reporting. In addition, the agency will use Avatar's document management and electronic signature features to facilitate the flow of clinical information throughout the organization as part of its mission of providing high quality residential and outpatient care to consumers.

Netsmart's clinical solution will help ensure Mountain Lakes meets the "meaningful use" requirements for eligibility for federal grants and potential Medicaid and Medicare incentives.

"As a long-time Netsmart customer, we knew we could count on their software and continued expertise as we continue to grow our organization's services," said Kert Redstrom, executive director, Mountain Lakes Behavioral Healthcare. "We explored other software, but chose to continue with Netsmart because of their ability to help us smoothly transition to other Netsmart software, competitive pricing, knowledge of industry legislation and certification standards, and ability to help us meet Alabama state reporting requirements."

RADplus, Avatar's flexible configuration and management tool, will furnish Mountain Lakes with comprehensive access and security management, modeling, table and dictionary maintenance, and ad hoc report integration. Mountain Lakes' database requirements will be supported by InterSystems Corporation's Cache' second generation database management solution, which is fully integrated with Avatar.

"We're pleased to continue our longstanding relationship with Mountain Lakes to support their growth and provision of high quality behavioral health services," said James L. Conway, chief executive officer, Netsmart Technologies. "Our comprehensive solutions are easily implemented and will provide Mountain Lakes with the clinical and billing resources, data integration and reporting capabilities they need both now and well into the future."