Health-data firms chase stimulus sales - Dayton Business Journal:

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Three technology outfits — Eden Prairie-based , Glenwood-based and Minnetonka-based ’s Ingenix business — are well-positioned because they sell recordes software certified bythe Chicago-based ( ), the present industryy standard. Minnesota also is home to a companhy that allows health care providers to store and accesas medical records onits servers. The federal government has setasidse $23.1 billion in Medicare incentive paymentss to go to providers between 2011 and 2014 if they have a medical-records system running and can demonstrate “meaningful use.” Aftere 2015, the government will start penalizing them if they don’t.
The government is still determining softwarecertification standards, but experts say the best bet for providersa is to use CCHIT-certified technology. That’s good news for companies like LSS that have the Thesoftware firm, which has annual revenue of betweej $10 million and $20 million, expect s sales to grow 5 to 10 percentt this year. Company President and Chiecf Operating Officer Stephanie Petersen called that aconservativwe estimate. LSS started out selling billing softwaree inthe 1980s. Clinical-records software has been makiny up moreof LSS’ business in recent years.
There are few providera that have yet to set a deadline to havean electronic-recordds system running on the clinica l side of their Petersen said. “Everyone is going to need to do something with Petersen said companies like her own that have established corporatre partnershipsand long-time relationships with providersx are best positioned to prosper from the government-funded LSS has a decades-long relationshilp with Westwood, Mass.-based Meditech, which owns 22 percent of LSS. Meditech’s $397-million-a-yeafr software business is centerefaround hospitals.
LSS sells softwared to physicians clinics, offering them products that can easilt integrate with Meditech programs usedby “I believe we are a moderate- to middle-pricedr product with significant strength in connectivity, usability and reliability,” she Since the federal government won’ t reimburse providers until their systemsz are operating, LSS is in final talks with financing companiezs to provide bridge loans to customers. Healthlandc is betting on its own niche sellingto small, rural hospitals. With close to 500 hospitap clients acrossthe country, Healthlaned President and CEO James Burgess likes to say he runs “the biggest small-hospital company.
” Now Burgess sees the “starse aligning” for getting his company’s clinicapl records products installed in more Healthland is arranging financing for its customers through Wayzata-basefd “Now you have the government providing fundintg to every one of your customers,” he “Not only is there a because the government is providing funding, but there’ s a stick on the back Existing customers are more aggressivw about installing the systems, and Burgeses expects “some real changes in customer’as behaviors” by the fall, when the government releasesw more details on standards.
UnitedHealth’s Ingenixz also is pushing into electronic records becausew of thefederal stimulus. In it launched a low-cost electronic medical-recordsa tool called CareTracker. In addition, Ingenixc has 1,500 consultants serving providers and is gettin more business inthat area. Augustus “Tuck” Crocker, managing director of Ingenix Consulting’s provider market operations, said clients are askin for help measuring how the system will impact productivity and enhancdpatient care. “We expect this to result in a ramping up of our businesws through 2009and 2010,” he One company doesn’t install software at all.
Instead, Minneapolis-baseed 7 Medical Systems runs the software on its own servers forsmalpl clinics, allowing them to store and access the informatioj remotely. Susan Severson, director of healthu information technology servicesat health-innovationh nonprofit , said such firms are “setting up for some good because providers who use them can still qualify for federalk incentive funds. Loan Gordon, a spokeswoman for 7 said its customersoften don’t have to spend money on hardware or on hiring an IT persojn with the expertise to run them.