May 13, 2008 (Nashville, Tenn) ---Next-generation revenue cycle company nTelagent, Inc. has announced that its proprietary front-end solution, the Self-Pay Management System (SPMS), can help rural hospitals and other healthcare service providers better manage their self-pay patient accounts. Unpaid self-pay balances often are cited as a top contributor to the healthcare industry’s growing bad debt, which threatens a service provider’s financial viability. Keeping the doors open at rural facilities is especially critical to the communities they serve, to ensure access to care and economic stability within the area.

Compared with their suburban and urban counterparts, rural hospitals and other providers serve a population that is more likely to live below the federal poverty line, and that is more likely to be uninsured. Without the proper technology in place or appropriately trained staff, rural providers often struggle to manage the accounts of the self-pay patients they serve, which can result in uncollected payments being written off as bad debt. This problem is especially apparent in emergency departments of rural facilities, where adequate personal and contact information is often not collected on the front end, and hospital bills never reach the patient.

“With the proper tools, technology and training in place, rural facilities can adjust to the growing number of self-pay accounts,” says nTelagent Chairman and CEO Earl T. Winter. “By implementing the Self-Pay Management System, our clients can focus on the front end of the revenue cycle process, which can lead to some impressive improvements. They’ll see increases in upfront collections, improvement in employee performance, reduction in employee turnover, and compliance with policies and procedures, all of which have a dramatic, positive impact on bottom-line results. With improved financial status, these rural facilities can continue to provide top-quality care for their communities.”
 
Through 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, including offering discounts.

Winter continues, “Not only do rural facilities provide care to a high percentage of self-pay patients, but they also are asked to provide a large proportion of charity care. Using non-credit data, our Self-Pay Management System helps facilities classify accounts in terms of capacity to pay, so that truly needy patients are identified on the front end. In addition, SPMS ensures standardized policies and procedures that eliminate guesswork in the handling of financial accounts and the reporting of charity care numbers.”

According to the American Hospital Association, rural hospitals provide healthcare services to nearly 54 million people, including 9 million Medicare beneficiaries.

Since the start of 2008, nTelagent has focused on agreements with community and rural hospitals. nTelagent’s solution has been endorsed by hospital associations including Tennessee Hospital Association, HomeTown Health and Mississippi Hospital Association. Other customers represent various segments of the healthcare industry, including physician practices, specialty clinics, home healthcare, emergency room outsourcing and collections companies. nTelagent is currently in advanced discussions with many other organizations, hospitals and hospital systems regarding the implementation of its Self-Pay Management System.

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.