Presbyterian Anesthesia Associates Goes Live on athenahealth’s Software-Enabled Service, athenaCollector^SM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. & WATERTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN), a leading provider of internet-based business services for physician practices, today announced that Presbyterian Anesthesia Associates (PAA), a physician-owned anesthesiologist group with 45 board certified anesthesiologists, is now live on athenahealth’s centrally-hosted, on-demand practice management and billing platform in an effort to improve operational and financial results across its care delivery organization.

“Aside from the traditional billing obstacles faced by any medical practice, our specialty faces constant regulatory change and oversight that has required us to now use a new kind of practice management service that we feel will enable us to better navigate what is an increasingly challenging reimbursement environment for anesthesiologists,” said Frank Stranick M.D., a member of PAA's Governing Committee. “We were impressed with not only athenahealth’s services, but also with their people because they are a large factor in facilitating the life of each claim resulting in fewer rejections and ultimately getting us reimbursed more efficiently. By adding a fully-integrated service operation to their athenaCollector practice management offering, they have built real-time intelligence into our billing system – we just don’t know of any other vendor with this capability.”

As part of athenahealth’s software-enabled service (SeS), athenaCollector, athenahealth has built in a proprietary knowledge-base of payer reimbursement process rules, athenaRules^SM, which is designed to enforce medical provider office workflow requirements, and is continually updated with payer-specific coding and documentation information by athenahealth staff. athenaRules acts as a proactive utility that guides clinic staff away from making billing mistakes that impact operational performance and the overall patient experience.

“athenahealth has worked for over a year to bolster our service offering to the anesthesiologist group segment as this is an extremely difficult specialty to service for traditional software-only practice management vendors,” said Rob Cosinuke, Chief Marketing Officer for athenahealth. “We see a growing market opportunity to service this specialty and we are extremely excited that a leading anesthesiologist group is now leveraging our abilities, specifically around new government initiatives like the expanded 2008 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.”

“The overarching benefit of on-demand services delivered via a national network like athenahealth’s is our ability to research, qualify, and update the network daily with new rules and measures. athenahealth’s virtual back-office service enables providers to participate in performance reporting programs without the disruption of having to maintain and update their traditional software-only solutions,” said Lindsay Mello, Anesthesia Service Manager at athenahealth.

About Presbyterian Anesthesia Associates

Presbyterian Anesthesia Associates is a physician owned anesthesia and pain management group practice consisting of 45 Board Certified/Eligible anesthesiologists and pain management physicians. The physicians of Presbyterian Anesthesia serve the special health care needs of the Charlotte Metro North Carolina region with numerous practice locations throughout the community. The group is dedicated to providing excellence in anesthesia and pain management services to all patients under our care.

About athenahealth

athenahealth is the leading provider of internet-based business services for physician practices. The Company’s service offerings are based on proprietary internet-based practice management and electronic medical record (EMR) software, a continuously updated payer knowledge-base and integrated back-office service operations. For more information visit www.athenahealth.com or call (888) 652-8200.

This press release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the benefits of the athenahealth’s service offerings. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. In particular, the risks and uncertainties include, among other things: the risk that our services offerings will not operate in the manner that we expect, due to design flaws, security breaches or otherwise; potential interruptions or delays in our internet-based services offerings; our reliance upon third parties, such as computer hardware, software, data-hosting and internet infrastructure providers, which reliance may result in failures or disruptions in our service offerings; errors or omissions included in our payer and clinical intelligence rules engine and database; and the evolving and complex government regulatory compliance environment in which we and our clients operate. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. athenahealth, Inc. undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise. For additional disclosure regarding these and other risks faced by athenahealth, Inc., see the disclosure contained in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.