Fujifilm Medical Systems, U.S.A., has launched a collaboration with Availity – a cloud-based platform for automated submissions that pre-clears and verifies authorization for imaging exams, and ensures that patients with high deductibles are aware of their financial obligations prior to or upon arrival for procedures.

"By working with Availity, Fujifilm can now offer new revenue cycle solutions and patient engagement tools, that weren't previously available with Synapse RIS," said Fujifilm Medical's William Lacy, vice president of Medical Informatics. "We are very unique in our ability to bring a complete solution to radiology group and imaging center practices, including integrated PACS, RIS, billing, physician and patient portals. Our Availity partnership further strengthens this portfolio, and provides our customers what they need to optimize their imaging business."

The Availity arrangement will up the features available in Synapse RIS. Synapse already lets radiology facilities manage operations with features able to handle scheduling, patient and physician portals, business intelligence analytics and productivity-boosting tools like Kiosk, universal worklist, and paperless consent forms.

Availity Authorizations and Availity Patient Access are now integrated into the Synapse RIS interface to let providers collect at the point of service, cut down on denied claims and make for better workflow efficiency.

Cloud-based Availity Authorizations lets providers automatically make submissions in real time. This feature does away totally with manual authorization tasks – and boosts schedule streamlining and expensive denials that lead to service being provided prior to insurer authorizations.

Availity Patient Access helps communicate costs to patients, and providers can determine before the visit what the patient's finances are, permitting a discussion of payment options before problems arise.

"Imaging providers realize that revenue generated from self-pay and high-deductible patients meets or exceeds the volume of reimbursement from many legacy payers," said senior vice president and general manager of Provider Solutions for Availity Scott Herbst. "The unique partnership between Availity and Fujifilm empowers those providers with the tools necessary to effectively collect from patients, while improving communication and patient satisfaction."

Availity made news in March at HIMSS 2018 in Las Vegas, when it announced the debut of its AuthPal and Patient Access solutions.

“Anyone who's walking into an imaging center with a high-deductible plan is likely walking in there owing something between $600 and $3000,” Jeff Chester, SVP and chief revenue officer for Availity, told HCB News at the time. “If you’re on a high-deductible plan, that imaging center has got to figure out how to make sure they collect as much as possible up front. So we are finding in the imaging market that bringing the two platforms together is really, really compelling.”

Many patients are also under the impression that they are covered by insurance, causing them to just walk out of imaging centers and hospitals when finished with their appointments without paying, a fact that Chester notes can prevent a provider from collecting around 60 percent of the full payment.

“Satisfaction and consumerism is something that really hasn’t existed in the value chain of health care. Patient financial responsibility is probably one of the biggest dissatisfiers for patients,” said Chester. “So to give them clear visibility on what they owe and payment options makes them really like their provider, because nothing’s worse than, after the fact, having a health care issue and trying to resolve a financial issue. You bring sickness and financial together, that’s just a bad place for patients.”