Accretive Health (AH) Issues Statement; Calls Minnesota AG's Allegations 'Distorting'
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The following statement was issued today by Accretive Health, Inc.:
Accretive Health (NYSE: AH) strives every day to be a constructive and positive contributor to the American healthcare system, and we want to tell our story.
WHO WE ARE
Our mission is to help our healthcare clients strengthen their financial stability and deliver better care to their local communities, thereby working to increase healthcare access for all.
We strive to help our clients navigate the healthcare industry’s most pressing challenges – the explosion in the technological sophistication and attendant cost of medical care; the explosion in complexity of the revenue streams used to pay for medical care; and the growing need to mesh today’s high-tech medicine with the deeply embedded and fondly cherished values of care that every not-for-profit hospital can trace back to roots in charitable or religious organizations.
WHAT WE DO
What we do is critical to our clients. We help our clients operate in today’s environment by bringing to the table world-class innovation, technology, and dedicated people.
In the overall revenue process for hospitals, over 90% of revenue is received from insurance companies and government payors, which requires accuracy, diligence and significant processes and technology to fully achieve. The remainder comes from patients – typically insured and employed with an ability to pay the necessary co-pays. In addition, every hospital we work with has a large charity program for patients who have no way to pay for their care, and we help hospitals get that program to those in need.
We focus on ensuring that the financial portion of the patient experience is compassionate, efficient, clear, and achieved without errors or confusion for the patient. Our objective is that this happens 100% of the time when a patient comes into one of our client hospitals. Some patients do not have the ability to pay. Frequently, however, such patients are eligible for a funding source or government programs. Many of these patients who qualify for a funding source are unaware that they do, and we go to great effort to help them obtain that coverage. Patients that are uninsured and qualify for assistance deserve to get that assistance without any loss of dignity. We do this with great pride and recently achieved a milestone of having helped over 250,000 patients find a state or federal program, or private insurance, that they are eligible for, reducing the ranks of the uninsured. It is very important to our clients and to us that we do everything we can to support the uninsured to obtain the best funding solution. If there are no programs available, we accurately and compassionately follow the hospital’s charity policy.
Along with pride in our people and the results we help our mission-based clients achieve, must also come a clear ability to try and do better every day. If even a single patient ever believes that they have not received the assistance they deserve, in a way that is useful to them and to their healthcare providers, we must do better. We are always striving for continuous learning in collaboration with our clients, patients, and industry association groups to take our processes and procedures to the best possible level.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
The inaccuracies, innuendo and unfounded speculation that have been part of the Minnesota Attorney General’s recent allegations are extensive. We want you to know that we are working with our advisors to address the allegations.
By way of limited example:
The Attorney General’s press materials grossly distort and mischaracterize Accretive Health’s revenue cycle services. The overwhelming majority (more than 90%) of revenue collected by Accretive Health for its clients comes from third-party payors. The suggestion that our focus or practice is to put bedside pressure on patients to pay their medical bills out of pocket is a flagrant distortion of fact. Where the patient owes part of the bill, we examine each and every episode of care to ensure that patients are not improperly charged and that the insurance companies are held accountable for what they owe to providers. In addition, our patient financial advocacy counselors’ work with uninsured patients to explore all potential coverage, including Medicaid, disability, COBRA, auto insurance, and charity. As noted above, we have helped over 250,000 uninsured individuals get insurance coverage.
The very serious allegation of denying access to patient care is flatly untrue. We take seriously our obligations under EMTALA (the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act) and work with our clients to structure their procedures in the emergency room setting to comply with EMTALA. The specific example used by the Attorney General to support these allegations – that a father was approached for payment prior to his child being provided care – was in fact, the opposite. Our review of the records of that instance show that a family member made a special request to consult about financial arrangements and the expected cost of care in advance of treatment. We accommodated his request, and the father expressed his appreciation for our assistance.
Nevertheless, we take any patient’s concerns seriously. One of our fundamental principles is that patients should never believe that the critical work we do has interfered with their access to care. We are committed to understanding and addressing any situation where a patient expresses concern.
POSITIVE CONTRIBUTOR
We are committed to helping our hospital clients fulfill their mission to provide better quality care and increase healthcare access to all; we are committed to best practices and to continuous learning; we are committed to all of our stakeholders; and we are committed to build a great company.
That is how we were founded. That is who we are today, and how we will carry forward in the future.
Accretive Health (NYSE: AH) strives every day to be a constructive and positive contributor to the American healthcare system, and we want to tell our story.
WHO WE ARE
Our mission is to help our healthcare clients strengthen their financial stability and deliver better care to their local communities, thereby working to increase healthcare access for all.
We strive to help our clients navigate the healthcare industry’s most pressing challenges – the explosion in the technological sophistication and attendant cost of medical care; the explosion in complexity of the revenue streams used to pay for medical care; and the growing need to mesh today’s high-tech medicine with the deeply embedded and fondly cherished values of care that every not-for-profit hospital can trace back to roots in charitable or religious organizations.
WHAT WE DO
What we do is critical to our clients. We help our clients operate in today’s environment by bringing to the table world-class innovation, technology, and dedicated people.
In the overall revenue process for hospitals, over 90% of revenue is received from insurance companies and government payors, which requires accuracy, diligence and significant processes and technology to fully achieve. The remainder comes from patients – typically insured and employed with an ability to pay the necessary co-pays. In addition, every hospital we work with has a large charity program for patients who have no way to pay for their care, and we help hospitals get that program to those in need.
We focus on ensuring that the financial portion of the patient experience is compassionate, efficient, clear, and achieved without errors or confusion for the patient. Our objective is that this happens 100% of the time when a patient comes into one of our client hospitals. Some patients do not have the ability to pay. Frequently, however, such patients are eligible for a funding source or government programs. Many of these patients who qualify for a funding source are unaware that they do, and we go to great effort to help them obtain that coverage. Patients that are uninsured and qualify for assistance deserve to get that assistance without any loss of dignity. We do this with great pride and recently achieved a milestone of having helped over 250,000 patients find a state or federal program, or private insurance, that they are eligible for, reducing the ranks of the uninsured. It is very important to our clients and to us that we do everything we can to support the uninsured to obtain the best funding solution. If there are no programs available, we accurately and compassionately follow the hospital’s charity policy.
Along with pride in our people and the results we help our mission-based clients achieve, must also come a clear ability to try and do better every day. If even a single patient ever believes that they have not received the assistance they deserve, in a way that is useful to them and to their healthcare providers, we must do better. We are always striving for continuous learning in collaboration with our clients, patients, and industry association groups to take our processes and procedures to the best possible level.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
The inaccuracies, innuendo and unfounded speculation that have been part of the Minnesota Attorney General’s recent allegations are extensive. We want you to know that we are working with our advisors to address the allegations.
By way of limited example:
The Attorney General’s press materials grossly distort and mischaracterize Accretive Health’s revenue cycle services. The overwhelming majority (more than 90%) of revenue collected by Accretive Health for its clients comes from third-party payors. The suggestion that our focus or practice is to put bedside pressure on patients to pay their medical bills out of pocket is a flagrant distortion of fact. Where the patient owes part of the bill, we examine each and every episode of care to ensure that patients are not improperly charged and that the insurance companies are held accountable for what they owe to providers. In addition, our patient financial advocacy counselors’ work with uninsured patients to explore all potential coverage, including Medicaid, disability, COBRA, auto insurance, and charity. As noted above, we have helped over 250,000 uninsured individuals get insurance coverage.
The very serious allegation of denying access to patient care is flatly untrue. We take seriously our obligations under EMTALA (the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act) and work with our clients to structure their procedures in the emergency room setting to comply with EMTALA. The specific example used by the Attorney General to support these allegations – that a father was approached for payment prior to his child being provided care – was in fact, the opposite. Our review of the records of that instance show that a family member made a special request to consult about financial arrangements and the expected cost of care in advance of treatment. We accommodated his request, and the father expressed his appreciation for our assistance.
Nevertheless, we take any patient’s concerns seriously. One of our fundamental principles is that patients should never believe that the critical work we do has interfered with their access to care. We are committed to understanding and addressing any situation where a patient expresses concern.
POSITIVE CONTRIBUTOR
We are committed to helping our hospital clients fulfill their mission to provide better quality care and increase healthcare access to all; we are committed to best practices and to continuous learning; we are committed to all of our stakeholders; and we are committed to build a great company.
That is how we were founded. That is who we are today, and how we will carry forward in the future.
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