Premier Healthcare Alliance, Craneware Support Wilson Medical Center in Reform Readiness by Preventing Revenue Leakage, Advancing Revenue Integrity

Wilson Medical Center, an owner of the Premier healthcare alliance, has expanded its Premier relationship by choosing Craneware Revenue Integrity Solutions™ to help prepare for the financial implications of health reform, which could reduce reimbursement by as much as 10 percent for some hospitals.

"Considering the financial challenges presented by today’s economy and health reform, it has never been more important to increase efficiency and protect revenue through improved revenue cycle processes,” said Damone Sorensen, CFO of Wilson Medical Center based in Wilson, N.C. "Craneware’s first in KLAS software is central to reform readiness. It automates appropriate acceptance of regulatory updates and increases the accuracy of pricing, charging and coding for patient care procedures, supplies and pharmaceuticals. Having worked with Premier for close to a decade, we are confident their services and Craneware software will help us to effectively manage costs and assure compliance.”

Wilson Medical Center will implement the following Craneware Revenue Integrity Solutions to identify opportunities that prevent revenue leakage and advance revenue integrity:

• Chargemaster Toolkit^® – automates the chargemaster management process for more than 1,000 hospital organizations, helping them identify problems within line items and coding, as well as uncover flawed price positioning and potential compliance issues.
• Bill Analyzer – enables facilities to perform detailed audits that find potentially missed charges on outpatient claims using intelligence determined from Craneware’s analysis of more than 58 million real hospital claims. The software identifies root causes of missing claim data and links corrections back to the chargemaster, preventing error recurrence.
• Online Reference Toolkit^® – provides comprehensive clinical, coding, financial and regulatory reference resources to help hospitals manage compliance, coding and medical necessity information.
• Interface Scripting Module – connects Chargemaster Toolkit to a hospital’s patient financial system to eliminate manual data entry for greater data accuracy and efficiency.
• Pharmacy ChargeLink^® – establishes and maintains a link between a hospital’s pharmaceutical purchases and its chargemaster to reconcile medications and ensure they are accurately priced, billed and reimbursed at an optimal level.
• Supplies ChargeLink^® – establishes and maintains a link between a hospital’s supplies purchase history and its chargemaster to help optimize reimbursement by identifying chargeable supplies that are: missing from the chargemaster, cost more than CMS reimbursement, or incorrect or missing procedural or revenue codes.

Premier and Craneware expanded their partnership in April 2010, offering Premier’s more than 2,500 hospital members Craneware Revenue Integrity Solutions to optimize reimbursement, increase operational efficiency and minimize compliance risk. With Premier’s industry-leading consulting expertise and Craneware’s best-in-class products, providers can achieve the visibility required to identify, address and ultimately prevent revenue leakage. Craneware’s solutions are offered to alliance members as a part of Premier’s RevenueConnect™ and PharmacyConnect^® programs.

"To ‘do more with less’ requires efficiently, accurately capturing all revenue to which you are entitled while ensuring compliance,” said Keith Neilson, CEO of Craneware. "Craneware is glad our software is helping healthcare organizations efficiently achieve these critical demands through our expanding alliance with Premier.”

For the fifth consecutive year, KLAS ranks Craneware’s Chargemaster Toolkit first in the "Revenue Cycle – Chargemaster Management” market category in the "Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Professional Services” report based on detailed feedback from healthcare providers across North America.

"Through our work with Craneware, Premier is supporting our members to better coordinate spend patterns, increase cash flow and reduce compliance risks,” said Wes Champion, senior vice president of Premier Consulting Solutions™. "Our goal is to ensure that providers such as Wilson Medical Center are fairly reimbursed for the high quality services they provide.”

About Wilson Medical Center

Wilson Medical Center is a 294-bed facility that provides comprehensive services to more than 9,593 inpatients and 151,608 outpatients annually from communities within a five-county area in Eastern North Carolina.

About Craneware

Craneware (AIM: CRW.L, OTC: CRWRY) is the leader in automated revenue integrity solutions that improve financial performance for healthcare organizations. Craneware's market-driven, SaaS solutions help hospitals and other healthcare providers more effectively price, charge and code for services and supplies associated with patient care. This optimizes reimbursement, increases operational efficiency and minimizes compliance risk. By partnering with Craneware, clients achieve the visibility required to identify, address and prevent revenue leakage. To learn more, visit craneware.com and www.stoptheleakage.com.

About the Premier healthcare alliance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient

Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals and 75,000-plus other healthcare sites using the power of collaboration to lead the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care. Owned by hospitals, health systems and other providers, Premier maintains the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier has worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. http://www.premierinc.com. Stay connected with Premier on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.