5. Name:
athenahealth
Site:
http://www.athenahealth.com/
Founded: 1997
Location: Watertown, MA
Why it matters: OK, it’s hard to miss that the company is run by a sitting U.S. president’s cousin, but the presence of Jonathan Bush is not what makes
athenahealth interesting. What matters is the way in which the billing firm has jumped right into the middle of one of the most difficult problems in medical practice—simply getting paid!—with IT smarts to spare. athenahealth only gets paid when its doctor-clients get paid, so it has invested big in its athenaCollector billing software, which "knows" about payer-specific coding rules and nuances. To date, it has annual revenues of about $80 million, a modest size in a world populated by giants like McKesson and Cerner. Still, it collects $2 billion for clients annually, has already captured 1 percent of the U.S. physician base, and pretty much plans to take over the rest. That’s brash, but given the volume they‘re doing already it’s brash with some backbone.
What to look for: Growth, growth, growth—and better ways to catch those dollars. For example, athenahealth’s growing partnership with collection agency Transworld Systems should continue to help it rake in whatever bucks its front-end IT can’t do through normal channels.
