For Passport Health Communications, Franklin, Tenn., industry recognition has become a household word.
"In recent client visits, I've noticed that some of our clients do not call our products by their product names," says Scotte Hudsmith, executive vice president of finance and business development. "They'll just say, 'Have you Passported that?' We've now become an industry standard."
An eligibility verification company, Passport Health serves 1,500 hospitals and some 2,500 U.S. physician clinics/outpatient centers and has direct connections to 300+ payers.
"Our role is to do everything we can to make sure the submitted information is correct so the provider gets paid faster, the payer process is efficient, and the patient has a better care experience," Hudsmith says.
Passport, listed as #66 on the 2007 Healthcare Informatics Top 100, offers its products via three main platforms. Its BatchSource product conducts verification, eligibility and credit scoring transactions during the pre-registration in a batched process. OneSource is the browser-based, ASP version, whose per-transaction billing model makes it easily affordable, Hudsmith notes.
The enterprise product, IntelliSource, wraps all the features into a platform that integrates with the hospital's information system. "It's automatically pulling from and updating data to the hospital's system," he explains.
Passport is planning significant growth and an expanded portfolio in the near future, including acquiring additional technology, Hudsmith adds.
"We're actively pursuing companies that have strong technology and want to be part of solving the problem, but may not be at a point where they can invest in themselves."
After internal corporate discussions on healthcare's revenue cycle, Hudsmith says, "We decided to focus the majority of our efforts on the front end of the process, getting information right and clean. Then on back-end technology that would verify that what was done on the front end actually worked. Those are the types of technology we'd be looking to acquire."
Customer service remains the mainstay of the company, Hudsmith adds. "If customers have a problem, suggestion or praise to express, they can click on a button and send an email directly to our CEO, Jim Lackey. No in between person, no auto response — he gets them live."
