There has been a lively discussion over at the EMR and HIPAA website regarding the number of different industries that have a perceived “in” with small medical practices. We’ve got lab companies, medical transcription companies, billing companies and now even payroll companies that are offering EMR products and services to their medical practice customers. Obviously the EMR market is exploding right now and these companies are correctly trying to leverage existing customer relationships to gain a foothold in the market. Certainly being able to offer these products is good for the companies but whether or not it will be good for their medical practice customers is yet to be seen.
However, there is another company quietly entering the Electronic Medical Records space with a 12-year history in the health care communications business. This company is already working with 30 different health insurance plans and is currently providing daily services to about one million health care providers, 50% of whom are physicians.
NaviNet is America’s largest real-time healthcare communications network and they are rapidly expanding their clinical product suite for unified patient information management. In the fourth quarter of 2010 NaviNet announced their solutions for Electronic Medical Records and Practice Management as well as the acquisition of Prematics, which will expand their mobile presence.
That’s a lot of new technology to absorb in a short period of time but when it’s fully absorbed and integrated with existing products NaviNet, with their existing medical practice relationships, could very well become a serious player in the EMR market quickly.
Having 50% of the physicians in the country already using and trusting NaviNet to interact with insurance companies on a daily basis will certainly simplify the process of introducing these new products and services.
The vision of combining those existing relationships with a modular suite of products that can be implemented either individually or as a group is very promising. Sebastiaan Foppema, Senior Vice President of Provider Sales and Operations for NaviNet explains that physicians will be able get comfortable with the products in stages. “As they become more comfortable using their iPhones to e-prescribe while in the same room with a patient they can also begin to see the advantages of adding EMR technology while working one-on-one with patients.”
Once a practice makes the decision to implement the NaviNet EMR system existing patient history can be automatically populated from NaviNet Insurer Connect and other products, with no re-keying required. Further implementation is aided by a self-learning benchmark testing process that is done at the physician’s office. Physicians and staff can start slowly and add functionality as skill and time permits.
NaviNet has very solid strategy for quickly entering the Electronic Medical Records market and I’m looking forward to seeing how well they execute on that strategy.
The NaviNet suite of products and services currently includes:
- NaviNet Insurer Connect
- NaviNet PM
- NaviNet EMR
- NaviNet Mobile Connect
- NaviNet Patient Communications
For more information on NaviNet’s product visit their clinical solutions website.
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