KLAS: Epic, MEDITECH Continue to Lead Patient Accounting Solutions

Market research firm KLAS has identified Epic, MEDITECH, and other vendors as having the best finance and revenue cycle management solutions in 2021.

Health IT giant Epic took the top spot for patient accounting and patient management solutions among large hospitals and integrated delivery networks for its Resolute Hospital Billing solution, according to the Best in KLAS 2021 report.

Epic earned 90.5 points out of 100 based on its culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value. Its Resolute Hospital Billing solution beat out the only other competitor in the report, Cerner’s Patient Accounting/CommunityWorks Financial solution which earned 56.0 points, the report released today showed.

Community hospitals with less than 200 beds preferred MEDITECH’s Expanse Patient Accounting solution, giving it 87.1 points out of 100. The solution outranked Allscripts’ Paragon Financials with 70.1 points, CPSI’s Evident Thrive Patient Management with 70.0 points, and Cerner’s Patient Accounting/CommunityWorks Financials with 69.4 points.

Both Epic and MEDITECH earned top marks for their patient accounting solutions last year, too. This is also the eleventh year in a row KLAS named Epic the top overall software suite in healthcare.

Overall software suite refers to vendors that provide a host of products clients purchase to address core IT needs, the firm explained. This includes vendors with both a fully rated clinical and financial system as well as ancillary systems that qualify for the overall suite ranking.

KLAS also named other top healthcare finance and revenue cycle management vendors in this year’s report.

Vitalware, for example, took the top spot among chargemaster management solutions for its Vitalware by Health Catalyst, VitalCDM product. The solution earned 94.2 points, exceeding those earned by Craneware’s Chargemaster Toolkit (91.4 points) and nThrive’s CDM Master (76.9 points).

Notably, all of Vitalware’s clients who use the chargemaster management tool said the company keeps all promises, the solution is part of their organization’s long-term plans, and they would buy the product again.

For claims management, all solutions in the report ranked above the industry average of 86.2 points. But Quadax’s Xpeditor earned the most at 89.0 points, followed by Change Healthcare’s Assurance Reimbursement Management with 85.5 points, SSI Group’s SSI Claim Management with 85.4 points, and Experian Health’s ClaimSource with 83.9 points.

For complex claims services, though, clients pushed Revecore to number one, followed by Argos Health and Aspirion.

Additionally, KLAS named AccuReg “Best in KLAS” for patient access after clients gave its Patient Access solution 91.5 points. Other top patient access vendors above the market average of 84.0 points included PELITAS, Waystar, and Change Healthcare.

Other vendors named Best in KLAS in the healthcare finance and revenue cycle management areas include:

• Strata Decision Technology’s StrataJazz Decisions Support for business decision support
• ChartWise’s CDI for clinical documentation improvement
• Workday’s HCM, Finance Management, Supply Chain Management for enterprise resource planning (ERP)
• Dimensional Insights’ Diver Platform for healthcare business intelligence and analytics
• ClearBalance HealthCare’s Patient financing for patient financing services

KLAS also identified the top players in the revenue cycle outsourcing market. According to clients, Ensemble Health Partners outperformed peers R1 RCM, Guidehouse, and Confider Health Solutions. Notably, all Ensemble Health Partner clients said the company “avoids charging for every little thing.”

The healthcare finance and revenue cycle automation market is likely to grow over the next couple of years as organizations strive to make the largely manual processes more digital. In fact, KLAS named revenue cycle as one of the top areas in healthcare ripe for innovation and disruption in a report from late last year.

Health system leaders in the report agreed that revenue cycle management will get the disruption it needs in 2021, especially in light of the financial impact COVID-19 has had on providers. A growing emphasis on patient financial experience will also drive providers and vendors to revamp revenue cycle automation, according to the report.