NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: QSII) and a leading provider of healthcare information systems and connectivity solutions, announced today that Cherokee Health Systems has selected NextGen Healthcare to provide revenue cycle management (RCM) services to re-engineer its business processes, improve financial results and drive business growth.
The addition of RCM services is an expansion of a current relationship between NextGen and Cherokee. Under this agreement, Cherokee Health Systems will deploy NextGen® RCM Services across its 45 locations throughout Tennessee. These services will seamlessly integrate with Cherokee's current utilization of NextGen® technology, including NextGen® Ambulatory EHR, NextGen® Electronic Dental Record (EDR) and NextGen® Practice Management.
Utilizing NextGen RCM Services, Cherokee Health Systems, a nonprofit Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and Community Mental Health Center, can leverage one platform across its enterprise connecting and synchronizing their clinical, administrative, and revenue solutions to enhance existing financial and operational workflows.
Cherokee Health Systems provides integrated, comprehensive, culturally competent healthcare services to more than 63,000 patients averaging more than 400,000 visits annually. Since its founding in 1959, the organization has steadily increased the number of patients served, unduplicated encounters, locations and programs delivered in its service area.
"NextGen's EHR allows us to quickly address our ever-changing internal and external documentation needs and their services help us stay up-to-date with regulatory and meaningful use requirements," said Jeff Howard, chief financial officer for Cherokee Health Systems. "As a provider of health services, our major focus is on achieving excellence in clinical care but to keep the lights on, we also need exceptional business processes. Some of our staff members have been with us for 20+ years. They know our clientele and buy into our mission, but in this complex healthcare environment, we need to do some things differently."
"NextGen's RCM solution will allow Cherokee to shift internal billing resources into other functions without eliminating jobs and the ROI calculations project enough improvement in collections to allow us to keep our staff and still come out ahead," added Howard. "Our expectations in this partnership are high, but with RCM's ability to maximize the functionality of our system and insert best practices into our billing processes, we should be well-positioned for the road ahead."
As an FQHC, Cherokee Health System addresses various social determinants of health by primary and preventive care services such as medical, dental, and behavioral health are provided to individuals of all ages, regardless of their ability to pay. This contributes to both more complex reimbursement issues and stringent reporting requirements. Seamlessly integrating NextGen RCM Services and its comprehensive compliance program with their current NextGen® solutions provides Cherokee with the necessary reporting utilities to support the variety of documentation needed to satisfy federal and state regulations and funding requirements.
"The realities of declining physician reimbursements coupled with the increased complexity of payer rules and edits have forced many healthcare organizations to take a closer look and approach revenue cycle management differently if they are to remain viable in today's evolving healthcare landscape," said Monte Sandler, executive vice president of NextGen RCM Services. "Results today are driven by the very real need to improve financial and clinical outcomes through automation, analytics and personal service. Organizations must focus on ensuring they have the right people, processes and technology in place to benefit from the redesign of healthcare reimbursement model. Our mission is to empower providers to care for their patients with less of a burden of running their practice. Clients can leave their revenue cycle worries to us -- allowing them to focus on clinical competency and patient care."
UK Government donates £2 million worth of medical equipment to Ukraine