athenaCollector Review and Pricing

Why We Chose athenaCollector for New Practices

While any medical practice can benefit from athenaCollector, athenahealth’s medical billing service, it’s a particularly good choice for new practices because of its intuitive, easy-to-use medical billing portal. Additionally, the system is designed to ensure your practice is maximizing operations and revenue, laying the groundwork for profitable growth. The platform delivers real-time data analytics to help you compare your performance against athenahealth’s network of more than 160,000 healthcare organizations, so you know how to improve. The vendor also offers a wide range of customizable reports and guides you in reaching that level of optimization, which is ideal for healthcare leaders eager to learn and improve.

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For revenue cycle management (RCM), athenaCollector uses its billing rules engine (fed by data from its network) to help you achieve a 94 percent first-pass resolution rate on claims. That figure is lower than many similar vendors we reviewed, but still higher than the industry average. Athena’s experts file medical claims and post payments, and you can track their performance through detailed, on-demand reports. At the same time, the athenaCollector workflow dashboard streamlines all your claim- and appointment-related tasks in a single view, helping you stay on top of your RCM objectives.

If your practice drops below baseline performance, your athenahealth Customer Success Manager uses the analytics to recommend corrective actions. For example, if your cash flow is disrupted because your most important claims are spending more days in accounts receivable (DAR), the vendor can pinpoint where the delay is occurring and help you get things moving again. We found no other medical billing service with such a benefit, and we believe new practices trying to get off the ground and stabilize revenue will find this particularly advantageous.

Ease of Use

athenaCollector is part of the larger athenahealth platform, which has a steeper learning curve than many standalone billing systems. While the overall system isn’t the most user-friendly or intuitive, the billing portal itself is more straightforward and easier to navigate, especially for new practices. Some basic tasks can still require several steps, and the interface uses a lot of drop-down menus, but most billing actions are clearly laid out.

The electronic medical record (EMR) side of the suite is clunkier than the billing side, and it’s the billing features you’ll rely on most. Fortunately, role-based training and customer support are available to help new users get comfortable quickly.

athenaCollector Features

athenaCollector functions as both a practice management system and a medical billing application. You can use it to schedule appointments, verify patients’ insurance and track claims through a built-in reporting system. Here are some features that stood out to us: 

Claim Scrubbing

athenahealth’s medical billing and coding services rely on a team of HIPAA-compliant, certified coders. The coding service is fully integrated into the athenahealth clinical workflow, which kicks in when you place an eligible claim order. You can write a note before they begin work, and they’ll be able to flag issues or reply directly to you.

Within your workflow dashboard, you can monitor each encounter assigned to the athenahealth coding services with just one click. The coders’ work is even reviewed by third-party auditing programs to ensure accuracy.

After the claim scrubbing process, claims are submitted to clearinghouses or directly to the appropriate payer, and payments are posted. The athenaCollector billing rules engine accelerates the process by using network-wide data to detect and fix claim errors before they affect your bottom line. The vendor’s qualified billers use this continuously updated engine, which includes more than 30,000 rules, to review your claims for accuracy. athenahealth makes more than 4,500 rule changes each year, proactively identifying and reducing errors so your practice can run smoothly.

Denial Management

athenahealth’s medical billing process includes denial management that covers most rejected claims and boasts a first-pass resolution rate above 94 percent (submitting approximately 20 million claims each quarter). According to the company, healthcare organizations that use its billing services can see a 6 percent increase in collections, a 32 percent reduction in DAR, and 8 percent fewer no-shows compared to providers who handle billing in-house.

That said, athenahealth does leave certain denial types for practices to manage on their own, which may present challenges, especially for new practices still building their internal billing expertise.

athenaClinicals

athenaCollector users get full access to athenahealth’s EMR system, athenaClinicals. This platform surfaces real-time data and insights from across the vendor’s network of more than 160,000 clinicians. Providers can collaborate on patient care plans with fellow healthcare organizations, sharing records through secure Carequality and CommonWell connections. They can also access patient data on the go via the integrated athenaOne mobile app and use the system’s dashboard insights to identify revenue opportunities and improve care delivery. 

Reports

We really liked that athenaCollector gives you full visibility into your practice’s financial performance through its built-in reporting tools. With the dashboard, you can track key metrics, set benchmarks and tap into athenahealth’s expert support and network-wide insights to improve revenue outcomes.

Data from your system automatically populates reports in the athenaCollector dashboard. These reports surface insights such as charge entry lag, collected balances and population health data, helping you close care gaps and improve patient outcomes. You’ll also see stats on front office productivity, medication delivery and financial trends. Additionally, athenahealth’s custom reporting tool lets you design your own reports to focus on the data that matters most. (Our detailed review of athenahealth explains more about this platform’s medical software capabilities.)

athenaCollector Pricing

athenahealth charges 4 to 8 percent of your monthly practice revenue for its athenaCollector billing services. A company representative didn’t disclose specific rates but noted that clearinghouse fees are included in the percent-based model. Some other medical billing services we examined charge these fees on top of the collections percentage.

While athenahealth doesn’t publish exact pricing, it did share the criteria used to determine its medical billing service rates:

• Practice size: The number of care providers in your practice typically affects the percentage charged. More providers usually mean more claims and more complexity, so pricing is adjusted case by case.
• Specialty and billing complexity: Each medical specialty has different billing requirements. More complex specialties (such as mental health, which often involves prior authorizations) usually cost more than simpler ones.
• Claims volume: Higher claims volume may qualify your practice for discounted rates.
• Claim value: High-value claims, especially in bulk, can also trigger discounts.

On the plus side, athenahealth is the only medical billing provider we reviewed that lets practices cancel their contract at any time.

Implementation and Onboarding

New practices can get up and running with athenaCollector and the rest of the athenahealth suite relatively quickly. That’s because newly opened healthcare organizations have much less data to import than established practices. In this case, being a new practice is an advantage, often shortening the implementation process, which typically takes between four and 11 weeks.

athenahealth pairs your practice with a dedicated Customer Success Manager during onboarding. This person remains your point of contact even after implementation is complete, ensuring you always have a direct line for technical support, consultative guidance and help maximizing the software’s capabilities. You’ll also receive unlimited in-person training at no additional cost — a standout benefit, since many competitors charge extra for this. For continued learning, athenahealth provides a library of on-demand eLearning videos so you can build your skills at your own pace.

athenaCollector Customer Service

athenahealth provides 24/7 live support through chat, email, web or phone, along with a robust library of online guides, deep dives into specific customer success resources, and eLearning videos. A dedicated Customer Success Manager is also available to help improve your practice’s financial efficiency and resolve technical issues.

You’ll also benefit from more personal, in-office support than many vendors we reviewed. athenahealth representatives will visit your medical office to discuss your options face-to-face, offering guidance, medical billing tips and ongoing support. They’ll even return free of charge if additional help is needed, which is a level of service few other medical billing companies offer.

athenahealth reports a customer satisfaction rating of over 95 percent and says 87 percent of issues are resolved within one business day. However, while the company states that callers typically wait less than two minutes for assistance, some customer feedback indicates the service experience may not always meet expectations.

Limitations

Practices may be concerned about the following potential downsides of athenaCollector: 

• Limited denial management: While athenahealth’s billing team handles most claim rejections, this vendor doesn’t take responsibility for managing certain types of denials. Unfortunately, it doesn’t clearly outline which denials it excludes, which could create support problems, especially for practices with more complicated billing scenarios that rely heavily on vendor assistance for revenue recovery.
• Lack of pricing clarity: athenahealth declined to provide even a ballpark estimate for its services. While it shared factors that influence pricing, such as claim volume, provider count and specialty, this lack of transparency makes it harder for practices to compare costs or budget effectively.
• Steeper learning curve for the full platform: While athenaCollector’s billing portal is intuitive and well-suited for new practices, the larger athenahealth platform includes features like electronic medical records and analytics that can take more time to learn and master.

Methodology

We spent hours investigating medical billing services, including athenahealth’s athenaCollector. This examination involved software demonstrations, phone interviews and customer service calls. We also analyzed customer reviews posted online, including those on the Better Business Bureau website.

To determine our best pick for new practices, we evaluated each vendor’s certified coding and billing professionals, customizable reporting, and the quality of support and guidance available. We chose athenaCollector as the best medical billing service for new practices because, between the company’s consultative support and data-driven platform, the system is designed to help healthcare organizations grow and succeed, making it ideal for newly established practices.

Bottom Line

We recommend athenaCollector for …

• Data-driven healthcare organizations that want dynamic reports and industry benchmarks.
• New and established practices that want professional guidance on how to optimize their finances.
• Healthcare organizations looking for a simplified, all-in-one RCM solution.

We don’t recommend athenaCollector for …

• Practices that want to outsource every aspect of revenue cycle management, with no internal billing involvement.
• Healthcare organizations that need hands-on support with denied claims and resubmissions.
• Offices looking for a billing partner to manage the entire RCM process, from patient intake through appeals.

Amanda Hoffman contributed to this review.