NTelagent Penetrates Hospital Marketplace With Self-Pay Management System

Nashville-based nTelagent, Inc. today announced that the company is continuing its rapid penetration into the hospital marketplace, partnering with the Tennessee Hospital Association, the Mississippi Hospital Association, HomeTown Health, and other hospital associations, hospital systems and hospitals.

Through its proprietary front-end solution, the Self-Pay Management System (SPMS), nTelagent enables healthcare service providers to revolutionize the way they interact with patients regarding patient responsibilities at the point of service. nTelagent’s system provides interactive scripts for registrars and financial counselors pre-service and at the point of service, guiding them through the exact steps to take with both insured and uninsured patients.

In a recent report, the company’s analysis of 40 healthcare service providers’ aged trial balances (ATBs) showed that approximately 50% of patient accounts with capacity to pay for services were written off as bad debt. Another 17% of accounts could have been eligible for government assistance or charity care programs but were also written off as bad debt. (One hospital’s impressive bottom-line improvements since implementing SPMS are discussed in a case study on nTelagent’s website, www.ntelagent.com. Details of the bad debt analysis are also available on the site.)
 
“We at nTelagent are honored to partner with these healthcare associations and their members,” says Earl T. Winter, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of nTelagent. “Our Self-Pay Management System is now being used in healthcare facilities across the country. Our rapid growth underscores the industry’s need for streamlined, comprehensive systems that effectively deal with the increasing number of self-pay patient accounts. Our solution not only increases upfront cash and reduces bad debt for providers, but SPMS also ensures patients have a better experience — as the system guarantees all accounts are handled in a consistent, non-discriminatory manner.”

Selected association partnerships include:

Tennessee Hospital Association: The Tennessee Hospital Association (THA), established in 1938 as a not-for-profit membership association, serves as an advocate for hospitals, health systems and other healthcare organizations and the patients they serve. After evaluating the offering, the THA Solutions Group selected nTelagent to be its endorsed vendor for self-pay management solutions. There are about 139 acute care hospitals operating in Tennessee, and most of them are members of the THA.

Mississippi Hospital Association: The Mississippi Hospital Association (MHA) is the state organization that represents and serves all types of hospitals, healthcare networks, and their patients and communities. Over 100 hospitals, healthcare systems, networks, other providers of care and their over 50,000 employees come together to form MHA.

HomeTown Health, LLC: HomeTown Health, LLC is an organization of rural and small hospitals located throughout the state of Georgia, who collectively pursue ways to help hospitals survive in this environment of tremendous budget cuts from the state and federal level. What began as a handful of community hospitals 10 years ago has now grown into an organization of over 55 hospital members and almost 50 business partners.

nTelagent is currently in advanced discussions with many other organizations, hospitals and hospital systems, regarding the implementation of its Self-Pay Management System. Since the start of 2008, the company has focused on agreements with community and rural hospitals. Other customers represent various segments of the healthcare industry, including physician practices, specialty clinics, home healthcare, emergency room outsourcing and collections companies.

About nTelagent, Inc.
Nashville-based nTelagent, Inc., a next-generation revenue cycle company, has developed a proprietary technology platform, the Self-Pay Management System (SPMS), that is revolutionizing the accounts receivable processes for hospitals, physician practices and all other healthcare service providers, in both inpatient and outpatient settings. For providers, SPMS improves upfront and overall cash flow, receivables and profitability by reducing bad debt and improving the revenue cycle process for self-pay patients. The company’s turnkey technologies enable providers to consistently move workflow to the front end of the revenue cycle, both pre-service and at the point of service. Using non-credit scoring data, the SPMS provides registrars and financial counselors with interactive scripts that integrate patient demographic information with each provider’s unique business policies and rules. The system also automatically identifies discounting and charity care options when applicable, ensuring that patient financial accounting — for both insured and uninsured patients — is handled appropriately and in a non-discriminatory manner. Visit www.ntelagent.com for more information.