PR - Accuro Healthcare to Provide Pre-Care Estimator to Tenet

Accuro CarePricer is a Web-based tool that estimates the cost of care before it’s delivered, enabling providers to inform patients with high deductibles, health savings accounts or no insurance of their financial responsibility. This helps providers collect payment in advance, which reduces bad debt and improves patient satisfaction, Brent McCarty, Accuro president and chief operating officer, said.

Trend to Single-Source Provider of Revenue Management Needs

Accuro has provided contract management services to Tenet since 1995. The two organizations partnered in 2003 to develop a price estimator for Tenet’s uninsured patients.

"Tenet established an industry-leading pricing model that provides managed care style discounts to self-pay patients and helps seek payment from patients in a compassionate way," McCarty said. "Tenet expanded the self-pay pricing model to include patients who have insurance but who also have some financial responsibility for their care. As a result, Tenet has found that collections are increased, bad debt is reduced, budget accuracy is enhanced and patients are more satisfied with their experience."

In addition to the existing contract management services, Accuro announced in May that it would provide Tenet with solutions to streamline and standardize the billing and revenue capture processes, as well as aggregate and analyze data from multiple sources.

"Many of our clients are seeking a single source provider of their revenue management needs," McCarty said. "With the introduction of CarePricer into all 56 Tenet facilities nationwide, Accuro leverages existing data to provide a full complement of contract management, revenue management, business intelligence and access solutions to Tenet Healthcare."

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Tenet is based in Dallas and through its subsidiaries, owns or operates acute care hospitals in 12 states.