Study on Healthcare Payments Processing Re-Enforces EOB Opportunity

The study was commissioned by Orbograph and conducted by BroadTrust.

Great quote from VP of Marketing Joe Gregory in press release that came out today: “There appears to be a paradox in the industry. One half of the respondents were still processing 25% paper and the overall electronic payment penetration is estimated to be near 60%. Meanwhile, satisfaction levels toward EDI adoption with hospital revenue cycle managers are 91%! There is a clear disconnect between expectations of industry influencers and actual achievements.”

If you remember, I came away from the recent IOFM Payments Summit with a feeling that there is a big opportunity in capturing paper EOBs when combined with the right additional processes - mainly in the area of payment processing. I think the results of this study re-enforce that view.

Great ideas that transform paper-burdened operations to fully automated platforms need greater visibility,” - See more at: http://www.orbograph.com/orbograph-underwrites-2014-strategic-healthcare-payments-research-initiative.htm#sthash.0EOnFcrI.dpuf

"Great ideas that transform paper-burdened operations to fully automated platforms need greater visibility,” said John Casillas, CEO of BoardTrust.

"The data affirms that there is still a lot of untapped value in transforming revenue cycle operations from paper-based to digital processing. Our action item from this survey is to develop additional educational programs on the benefits of electronification and methods to achieve straight-through-processing of payments and remittances," added Barry Cohen, co-president of Orbograph.

The 2014 Strategic Healthcare Payments Research Initiative is available on the Orbograph website, and can be downloaded at www.orbograph.com/ 2014-strategic-healthcare-payments-research-initiative.htm. - See more at: http://www.orbograph.com/orbograph-underwrites-2014-strategic-healthcare-payments-research-initiative.htm#sthash.0EOnFcrI.dpuf

The 2014 Strategic Healthcare Payments Research Initiative is available on the Orbograph website.

When leaders of organizations are willing to throw

“there appears to be a paradox in the industry. One half of the respondents were still processing 25% paper and the overall electronic payment penetration is estimated to be near 60%. Meanwhile, satisfaction levels toward EDI adoption with hospital revenue cycle managers are 91%! There is a clear disconnect between expectations of industry influencers and actual achievements.” - See more at: http://www.orbograph.com/orbograph-underwrites-2014-strategic-healthcare-payments-research-initiative.htm#sthash.0EOnFcrI.dpuf

“there appears to be a paradox in the industry. One half of the respondents were still processing 25% paper and the overall electronic payment penetration is estimated to be near 60%. Meanwhile, satisfaction levels toward EDI adoption with hospital revenue cycle managers are 91%! There is a clear disconnect between expectations of industry influencers and actual achievements.” - See more at: http://www.orbograph.com/orbograph-underwrites-2014-strategic-healthcare-payments-research-initiative.htm#sthash.0EOnFcrI.dpuf

“there appears to be a paradox in the industry. One half of the respondents were still processing 25% paper and the overall electronic payment penetration is estimated to be near 60%. Meanwhile, satisfaction levels toward EDI adoption with hospital revenue cycle managers are 91%! There is a clear disconnect between expectations of industry influencers and actual achievements.” - See more at: http://www.orbograph.com/orbograph-underwrites-2014-strategic-healthcare-payments-research-initiative.htm#sthash.0EOnFcrI.dpuf

“there appears to be a paradox in the industry. One half of the respondents were still processing 25% paper and the overall electronic payment penetration is estimated to be near 60%. Meanwhile, satisfaction levels toward EDI adoption with hospital revenue cycle managers are 91%! There is a clear disconnect between expectations of industry influencers and actual achievements.” - See more at: http://www.orbograph.com/orbograph-underwrites-2014-strategic-healthcare-payments-research-initiative.htm#sthash.0EOnFcrI.dpuf

Follow-up on IOFM Payments Summit

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the second IOFM Payments Summit in Baltimore. As detailed in an article in last week's DIR, I left with two major takeaways for our industry from the event, which was attended by 230 people - a 70% increase over attendance at last fall's inaugural Payments Summit. Here is a condensed version of what we wrote (let me know if you'd like to see the full article):

• Automated EOB capture is very much alive and well in the payment processing space: There was a time when we believed that EOB capture might be the second killer app in the IDR (intelligent document recognition space) behind invoice capture. In the document capture market that idea came and went as ISVs struggled to gain a significant number of installs.
  
  What many in our industry failed to recognize is that like capturing invoices, capturing EOBs is more than just an OCR/data entry operation. EOBs are part of a healthcare billing process and EOB capture must be addressed as part of that process. Improving payment processing in healthcare through technology is currently a hot market and EOB capture is a part of this. However, it’s often not the traditional ECM players that are supplying these solutions. Rather it’s the payment processing organizations, banks, and lockbox providers (and ISVs that sell to them), that are stepping up because of their experience with receivables.
  
  That said, I'm not sure how good some of their automated EOB capture technology is, as a lot of it is homegrown by the payment processing ISVs. Clearly, it's better than not using any OCR at all, but when Orbograph's Bryan Bruton told me about the recognition improvements his start-up gained after it was acquired by Orbograph, it got me thinking that there may be opportunity out there for other document recognition specialists to license their EOB capture to some of these payment processing specialists.
  
• Payment processing organizations are struggling with the increasing trend toward electronic payments:  The general consensus is that it is the easier-to-process payments, like utility bills, that are moving online first, but there is also a desire by organizations to utilize imagng on a greater variety of documents. The result a dichotomy in the payments market as related to imaging. On one side, paper payments are decreasing. On the other side, more organizations than ever are recognizing the value in digitizing their transactional documents as soon as possible to transition from paper to electronic workflows. So, while imaging of traditional remittance payments may be on the decline, imaging in general is on the upswing. And payment processors that can address a greater variety of imaging applications, including full page capture and workflow, appear to be emerging as the winners--which represents another opportunity for traditional document capture vendors to sell into the payments processing space.
  
  
  
   

News on Upcoming Events from IOFM, Notable Solutions, HSA & Kofax

IOFM Preps for Second Payments Summit

Building on success of last year’s inaugural event, the Institute of Finance andManagement (IOFM) is gearing up for its second annual Payments Summit. The event, which focuses on B2B and C2B payments, is being held June 2-4 at the Hyatt Regency on the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. It features a day and a half of conference sessions, as well as an exhibition area.

Last year’s event had 100-150 attendees and IOFM organizers are expecting more this year. “Sign-ups have been steady, but we are still looking for more attendees and also have openings for exhibitors,” said RD Whitney, Executive Director for IOFM, which is owned by Diversified Business Communications. “We think we have the only event that focuses on the full spectrum of payments and provides a holistic view of payments automation.”

The Payments Summit was launched last year targeting former TAWPI members who felt alienated by the direction of IFO (the Institute of Financial Operations), which bought the TAWPI trade organization in 2011. IFO incorporated the former TAWPI show in its Fusion event, which is primarily focused on accounts payable. IOFM also hosts an accounts payable conference, but feels it is filling a market need with a dedicated A/R conference.

Last year’s Payments Summit was well received, and once again former TAWPI executive Mark Brousseau will be emceeing this year’s event. There is no headliner keynote, but the agenda features a steady stream of panels and end user presenters designed to provide peer-to-peer education. Last year’s hot topics included the challenges of managing multi-channel payment streams, as well as automating capture from full-page documents like EOB forms.

IBML is signed on as the title sponsor. Other exhibitors that Document Imaging talk readers may be familiar with include OPEX, BancTec, eGistics, Creditron, Data Dimensions, Fairfax Imaging, MAVRO, Open Scan, and Orbograph. Early attendee sign-ups include executives from industries like banking, telco, healthcare and retail, as well as trade associations and third-party payment processors.

Notable Solutions hosts inaugural US event

Capture and print management ISV Notable Solutions will be hosting its inaugural North American end user event that same week as the Payments Summit, also on the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. eNgage 2014 will run June 4-5 at the Pier 5 Waterfront Hotel. Keynote speakers include Bob Larrivee, director custom research at AIIM and Feri Clayton, director, ECM, IBM Software Group. Notable Solutions end uses from organizations like Toyota, Tulane University, and Fairfax County Government will also present.

“This event is in response to numerous requests from our customers and partners to bring together industry experts to discuss the key challenges facing organizations today,” said Mehdi Tehranchi, Notable Solutions CEO, as quoted in a press release. “We also plan on sharing the successes of those customers who have raised the bar by implementing cost-efficient systems to securely manage and gain greater participation in their business processes.”

Why Kofax Transform is Moving to Las Vegas

Kofax has apparently outgrown the locations at the San Diego Bayfront Hilton where its annual Transform event has been held the past four years. Transform 2015 will be held at in Las Vegas, March 8-11. The 2015 AIIM Conference will then be held in San Diego March 18-20. Kofax is hoping to attract a more international crowd and feels Las Vegas is a better location for that as well. Apparently, AIIM checked with Kofax before scheduling their event in San Diego, so there is no conflict here.

HSA Capture Agenda Shaping up
Finally, once again I have been invited to give my news review and predictions at this year's upcoming Harvey Spencer Capture Conference. The event is being held Sept. 3-4 at its usual location at the Glen Cove Mansion on Long Island. Other topics on the agenda include Big Data, Computational Linguistics and Semantic Understanding, and Photo and Video Understanding. Hope to see you there.

Prepping for ReadSoft User Conference, May 14-16

Looks like I'm heading down to this year's ReadSoft User Conference, May 14-16 New Orleans.. Should be a good, fun and productive event. I'm expecting to get an overview on ReadSoft's direction through a combination of attending the sessions, one-on-one interviews with ReadSoft executives and partners, and some good ole' Nawlins networking.

I visited the ReadSoft offices almost a year ago and came away with this overview of their basically two-pronged strategy: expanding their capture and P2P practices. It will be interesting to see how that strategy has evolved over the year, under the guidance of Andrew Pery, who was working for ReadSoft as a consultant when I visited last year, and was later named the company's first CMO.

ReadSoft is coming on an improved first quarter that included 27% YOY growth in software license sales and a 9% increase in overall revenue. ReadSoft's EBITDA was improved, but the ISV still lost money. According to President & CEO Per Åkerberg CEO, as quoted in the press release on the Q1 financials, "Our EBITDA result and our margins have taken clear s teps in the right direction....A gradual change in the reporting of our revenues from our support and maintenance agreements has affected this quarter’s result negatively compared to first quarter last year. This effect means no lost revenue but only a time delay in the reporting of these revenues."

Unisys Payment Processing Business Acquired and Changes Name

Not sure if these guys do much full-page document stuff anymore, but they definitely were big back in the day....

Also, here's Steve McNair's musings on the Google Goggles mobile recognition apps.