T-System Acquires Clinical Coding Solutions

 

On the heels of its Practice Management Associates (PMA) acquisition in January, T-System, Inc recently announced it has acquired Clinical Coding Solutions, Inc (CCS). Based in Kansas City, CCS is a privately held company that specializes in leveraging technology to provide the most efficient and effective facility and professional charge capture and coding for emergency departments (EDs), observation, urgent care centers, and outpatient clinics.  

T-System, a provider of clinical, business, and IT solutions for emergency medicine, supports more than 40% of the nation's hospitals. T-System's paper and electronic documentation systems are backed by gold-standard clinical content that was developed and honed by thousands of emergency medicine physicians and nurses across more than 250 million ED visits. Patient documentation is tightly linked to hospitals' financial performance because it is critical to ensuring accurate coding and maximum reimbursement. The CCS and PMA acquisitions will further extend T-System's ability to make a positive impact on a hospital's bottom line as it is the first ED vendor to connect the upstream clinical documentation processes with downstream coding and billing processes.  

"Providing hospitals with the most optimized revenue cycle requires great clinical documentation to be captured on the front end, and it requires a collaborative effort on the part of the coders and clinical team," says Mikael Öhman, T-System chief operating officer. "The marriage of these companies will allow us to provide that collaboration in a way no other vendor can. With PMA and CCS, we were excited not only by the opportunity that bringing them into the company would offer, but also by the way they complement each other and, in turn, T-System. Both offer facility and physician coding; but PMA was founded by an ED physician, providing a strong clinical background, and offers physician billing services, while CCS has a broad-reaching footprint across the US with a strong IT background."  

CCS was founded in 2003 and has been led by executives with extensive experience in software development for healthcare systems and hospital charge management. CCS helps more than 100 hospitals across the country achieve: greater compliance with hospital and CMS guidelines; increased accuracy in charge capture and coding; improved documentation in the ED; and increased net revenue.  

"Clinical Coding Solutions has been a T-System partner for several years now, and we've long observed similarities in our company visions, operations, and goals as they pertain to the advancement of emergency medicine," says Tom McCarthy, CCS president. "We are looking forward to joining T-System and helping strengthen its revenue cycle services offerings with our charge management technology and expertise."  

"2012 has been a year of unprecedented growth for T-System as we take a more holistic approach to optimizing the ED from front door to discharge and beyond," says Öhman. "The combination of T-System with CCS and PMA will allow us to develop new solutions and expand existing solutions to improve hospitals' clinical, operational and financial performance."

Source: T-System, Inc