CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland Clinic typically licenses technologies dealing with stents or stem cells. This week, it was software.
An application by the Clinic that manages uncompensated-care patients and the productivity of financial counselors will be part of a broader health-care finance suite from CareMedic. (The Clinic declined to discuss the deal because it said it is not finalized.)
According to a release from CareMedic, the Clinic’s Financial Admissions Clearance Tracking Software focuses on looking at the bad-debt risk in uncompensated-care patients. The program can help staff determine how much patients should pay, what the patient can actually pay and alternate payment options.
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Reporting mechanisms in the software can review how well financial counselors are working. But primarily, the Clinic’s software will “further address the challenges associated with self-pay, charity care, and consumer health-care impact,” according to CareMedic.
The Clinic is getting increasingly better at spinning off new products that aren’t central to the hospital’s mission. In late December, it created the Wellness Enterprise to sell and commercialize wellness products and later announced it was expanding the operations of its reference lab, which could eventually handle the complex tests many hospitals can’t handle themselves.
These programs are one way the Clinic can generate new revenues from largely existing services and products the hospital is already using. The Clinic does bring in top-flight talent to develop these revenue streams. In the case of the reference lab, the Clinic recruited Dino Kasdagly, the former chief operating officer at Mayo Clinic.
In the case of CareMedic, the Clinic’s tracking software will be part of a broader suite of services that manages patient registration and financial management hoping to cut down on errors and other issues that can cause billing delays.
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“More than ever, we see market demand for a single comprehensive solution that supports registration staff and is efficient and effective in handling the front-end process flow to provide a clear and actionable view of a patient’s financial profile,” Sheila Schweitzer, CareMedic’s chief executive officer, stated in the company’s release.
