Unibased Systems Architecture: Managing care agendas for productivity

Creating enterprise scheduling and registration systems with the agility and deep features to keep healthcare competitive has become the mission of St. Louis-based Unibased Systems Architecture, ranked #85 in this year's Healthcare Informatics Top 100.

The company's additions to its longstanding core product line of integrated enterprise scheduling and surgery management systems helped increase its revenue by $2 million in FY07.

Enhancements to Unibased's main products, Resource Management Systems (RMS) and periOperative Resource Management System (ORMS), boost hospital and clinic productivity by coordinating the physician's order with all the other departmental stops on the patient's care agenda. In addition to verifying eligibility, the system also includes a specialized engine to check for medical necessity and determine insurer reimbursement portions in advance.

These new features prepare clients for the emerging healthcare business trends, Covington says: “Organizations are now putting more emphasis on the patient's ability to pay, including what the insurer will pay and what portion the patient will pay -- right at the point of scheduling. In the very near future, the next component is identifing to the patient what their portion of the fee will be.”

Reaching beyond eligibility and into payment relationships prior to rendering service also may give healthcare a way to reduce one of its financial albatrosses -- the debt incurred from a patient's failure to pay their portion.

“It's a big change for the industry to think in terms of reducing their bad-debt percentage,” Covington says. “Writing off that percentage was an accepted thing years ago, but now the financial pressure is on.”

USA has launched a new business platform: ForSite2020. The platform includes scheduling across the enterprise, encompassing OR, diagnostics, rehab, physician clinics, and more. Also incorporated are a patient portal, a physician portal and ForSite Analytics, a business intelligence tool.

Unibased's model for business success is simple, says CEO Larry Covington: Build software that works. He estimates that less than 1 percent of the calls to the company's support-center are related to software problems, allowing employees to focus on future product upgrades and features. “If the software product is reliable and stable, and has the functions that you need to compete, then everything else falls into place,” he says.