athenaTelehealth: an embedded solution for virtual care

Add revenue and increase accessibility with athenaOne and athenaTelehealth

Telehealth is here to stay. This technology-enabled service addresses a number of challenges and disparities in healthcare, and has been a boon for medical practices and patients alike. It makes care more accessible for patients, whether they’re very busy, need care for contagious infections like influenza, or managing chronic illnesses: not just for those with highly infectious diseases like COVID-19. It also helps physicians care for patients in rural areas where clinicians are limited, as well as patients with mobility challenges, contributing to the health equity many are striving for.

Growing utilization of telehealth software

Pair these benefits of telehealth with recent advances in technology, the removal of certain regulatory barriers (driven by the need for telemedicine during the pandemic), and the clear benefits to scheduling and revenue cycle management (especially for specialties like endocrinology, cardiology, and others), and it’s easy to see why this service has taken off. In fact, there has been a 23x rise in telehealth utilization since 2020.¹

Who is using telemedicine the most? According to recent research from athenahealth, 77% of providers have seen telehealth utilization remain consistent or increase within the past year. Innovative healthcare organizations appear to be leading the way: practices that utilize applications of AI and practices that have incorporated value-based care models have seen the largest increases in telehealth use.²

However, certain challenges persist. Telemedicine software can be awkward to use and often is not integrated or connected with more comprehensive healthcare IT (HIT). Concerns about privacy and questions about telemed’s application beyond one-to-one, physician/patient interactions also endure.

athenaTelehealth: a different kind of telehealth platform

These opportunities and challenges have driven the continued development of athenaTelehealth™, our embedded telehealth offering within our comprehensive HIT platform, athenaOne®, which combines capabilities for EHR, practice and revenue cycle management, and patient engagement.

Specifically, our embedded solution delivers benefits to clinicians, patients, and to the overall practice and revenue management of your organization.

athenaTelehealth is better for clinicians

How does athenaTelehealth and its integration with athenaOne help you deliver the best care possible? Let’s take a closer look, from a few different angles.

Telehealth EHR integration

The best technology should deliver the information you need, when and where you need it; help you document your encounter efficiently and accurately; and then disappear into the background. It’s our goal that technology enhances your time with patients, rather than causing distraction.

athenaTelehealth is an embedded add-on within the comprehensive athenaOne solution so you and your patient can complete a full telemed visit—appointment scheduling, patient outreach, patient-provider video conferencing, encounter documentation, and billing—without ever leaving athenaOne.

Automation helps keep things running smoothly; for example, scheduling a telehealth visit drives all downstream workflows—including triggering appointment reminders and instructions for logging in to the appointment, and post-appointment billing tasks—which helps with efficiency, accuracy, and keeps distractions to a minimum.

From a technology and servicing perspective, adding athenaTelehealth for an existing athenaOne customer is quick and easy—and your support team remains consistent.

If you’re not currently using athenaOne, our cloud-based infrastructure and dedicated implementation support make switching as fast and seamless as possible.

Including family members in visits has been such a benefit for the family members helping to manage care for our elders and children in our practice. And, the ability to easily access and view patient information during a telehealth appointment allows for accurate and informed decision-making.

 Martha Ann Mastroberti, healthcare informatics manager at Valley Medical Group

Data privacy and security

Data security is likely a high priority for you and your team—especially if you’re a behavioral health provider—which is why we make it a priority in our platform and services. We’ve built athenaTelehealth with advanced data security protections and we continuously monitor and update our platform so it, and its output, are compliant with evolving healthcare regulations. This is true for federal laws like HIPAA, various state laws, and industry regulations so you know that patient information is handled securely.

A user-friendly experience

Your experience using any technology has major implications for your satisfaction with a platform, as well as your time. If you're adding telehealth to your practice, you don't want to add disruption—you need an EHR with telehealth capabilities embedded, not just any EHR that can work with separate telehealth software. That’s why we continually find ways to improve all our users’ experience in athenaOne and athenaTelehealth, and one of the reasons our customers love the platform.

For example, athenaOne EHR workflows are customizable, with pre-built workflows for specialists and common encounter-types, so your time with patients is as efficient as possible. Helpful clinical information is also surfaced within the EHR where relevant. Providers using athenaTelehealth can work within the EHR during a virtual doctor visit, and our video conferencing function helps you stay connected with your patient even as you’re documenting your conversation.

Better for patients

Telehealth is a great service to offer to your patients. Not only does virtual care increase flexibility and accessibility for your patient population—it also makes engaging with your services easier and more convenient. Let’s look at how.

Comprehensive patient engagement tools

Engaging your patients isn’t just about making sure people show up for appointments; it’s about helping patients get more involved in their own care. athenaTelehealth supports patient engagement by helping people connect and work with their care team when they otherwise couldn’t, or wouldn’t.

Our telehealth software is embedded within our larger suite of patient engagement tools and services. This means patients have a secure communication channel and a way to conveniently communicate with their healthcare team and physicians when needed. This includes automated outreach, so patients receive reminders and communicate through the same email and text channels they already know, as well as the patient portal and mobile app.

Patients can schedule and reschedule appointments at their convenience and outside normal business hours and also make payments digitally through various online patient payment options, including through their mobile device.

These tools help lower various barriers for your patients, like time and distance constraints, mobility challenges, public health concerns for infectious illnesses, and even appointment availability. They also keep your patients more involved in their care, which can lead to better and more cost-effective outcomes.

A patient-friendly experience

Your patients’ experience with our technology is just as important as yours. We’ve designed our Patient Portal and our mobile app, athenaPatient, to be as intuitive and user-friendly as possible, so even your less tech-savvy patients can get the most value from them.

From a hardware perspective, your patients can access athenaTelehealth using any computer or mobile device with a modern web browser, integrated camera, and microphone. It’s built to be easy and intuitive, especially if patients are already using the athenaPatient app for scheduling or bill pay.

We’re proud to say that patients are having success with our telehealth platform—over 90% of patients left a 4- or 5-star review after completing an appointment using athenaTelehealth.³

Better for integrated practice and revenue cycle management

We’ve talked about the benefits of athenaTelehealth to you and your patients—but what about your bottom line? Telemedicine has been helpful to many medical practices looking to increase appointments and minimize cancelations and no-shows. Our consolidated approach helps you leveraging those benefits without adding to your administrative burdens.

Integrated medical billing tools and support

As we’ve discussed, much of the value that athenaOne (including athenaTelehealth) provides is possible because of its integrated architecture. This means there’s continuity between clinical documentation, diagnoses and orders, medical coding, medical billing, and patient payments and payer reimbursements. This cascading data and processing help your team run an efficient and accurate medical billing function that minimizes denials, maximizes reimbursements, and shortens your charge entry lag.

Improve schedule density and maximize revenue

Your organization’s financial health depends, in part, on you and your team’s ability to get the most out of each workday. Leveraging athenaTelehealth is a simple way to do just that.

Specifically, athenaTelehealth saves time and adds flexibility for your patients, so more people can receive the care they need, when they need it. More appointment demand means you are able to see and deliver care to more patients on a daily basis.

Offering telehealth as a visit type can also help you reduce your no-show rates because patients may find it easier to attend virtual appointments compared to traveling to a clinic. By offering more appointments each day, you’ll also make it easier for patients to find a time that is most likely to work for them.

Overall, athenaTelehealth helps practices maintain and even increase their schedule density by making healthcare more accessible and efficient for both providers and patients.

Valley Medical Group: embracing telehealth for behavioral health and beyond

Valley Medical Group is an independent, multi-specialty medical group that has been providing primary and specialty care to the residents of Western Massachusetts for more than 25 years. They have been an athenahealth customer since 2000.

Valley Medical Group was an early adopter of athenaTelehealth, providing feedback and testing for the solution as athenahealth developed it. The integration of telehealth into athenaOne has streamlined the group's daily processes, making its patient communication and billing more automated and efficient.

"Including family members in visits has been such a benefit for the family members helping to manage care for our elders and children in our practice. And, the ability to easily access and view patient information during a telehealth appointment allows for accurate and informed decision-making," said Martha Mastroberti, healthcare informatics manager at Valley Medical Group.

Using the embedded athenaTelehealth solution has been so successful for Valley Medical Group, approximately half of its behavioral health appointments are now held virtually. Roughly 8% of all appointments are facilitated with athenaTelehealth.

Building a telehealth practice with athenaTelehealth

With over 3,000 active customers, athenaTelehealth is helping create value for medical practices across the US, of all specialties and sizes.⁴ Our embedded solution makes it easy to facilitate online doctor visits without leaving the comprehensive athenaOne platform. The user-friendly experience helps you minimize disruptions with seamless, integrated workflows. An intuitive telehealth platform and integrated patient engagement tools will delight patients with a simple, flexible experience. And greater flexibility will enable you to sustain schedule density with billable telehealth appointments.

If you’d like to learn more about athenaOne, athenaTelehealth, and the benefits of remote care, read the articles below.