(2009-10-01) Bush Athena Guarantee Interview

Jonathan Bush says Athena Health is giving guarantees to EMR customers. The goal of the guarantee is to try to point out the differences between buying software and solving the problems of medical records and billing. So what that guarantee says is that if for any reason you, as a user of athenaClinicals, do not get your payments, we will credit, you even if our technology works properly... What is unique about Athena is that everything - the single principle that organizes all the work we do - is that we're the best in the world at getting doctors paid for being their best self. So if we're going to do a medical record, we better be able to prove how to get doctors paid more than not having a medical record for being their best self. That means we need to figure out where the money is. Is it from the government? Is from various pay-for-performance programs? Is it from eliminating faxes? Is it from eliminating staff? And then we've got to make sure those things actually happen, which means it will take a lot longer when you think about it... I believe that every single doctor that we give a proposal to on athenaClinicals will actually make more cash as a result of being on athenaClinicals than not.

The other thing is that we've identified, since getting into this guarantee and this product approach, 36 other programs today that pay sometimes more than the HITECH (ARRA) act states. We intend to onboard all the rules for all of those programs and enroll all of our clients in all of those programs.

A commenter notes: be sure to read the fine print contained in the FAQ section. The burden of demonstrating Meaningful Use Of EMR still falls entirely on the physician... Also, it is important to note that the guarantee is limited to six months of services. The physician would have to pay athenahealth up front, wait to see if they qualify for the incentive and meet athena's requirements, and then hope to get a refund. Bush responded.