Support Initiative by KAV Consulting
Athenahealth’s ETM application is a complex enterprise workflow system. It can create significant operational value by building workflows that meet specific organizational needs for task management and workflow reporting. The value that can be built and maintained within the application is directly proportional to an organization’s access to knowledgeable support resources. Because the learning curve for the ETM application is significant, maintaining in-house knowledge can be difficult during transitional times as well as for organizations running a lean resource structure such that resources are unable to dedicate time to ETM knowledge growth. For these organizations, it can be difficult to achieve the full value of ETM. Because of ETM’s strong value proposition leveraging outside resources should be considered when support is not a strategic option internally.
KAV Consulting offers staff supplementation as well as dedicated support for ETM. We have a proven record of understanding, resolving and enhancing the ETM application and suite of workflows. Because our resources continuously work with the ETM application we have developed an advanced understanding that allows us to solve problems in a fraction of the time that it takes most internal support resources. Our support agreements typically work out to less than the full cost of maintaining a full-time ETM resource and provide more value. It would be difficult to maintain the level of support we provide unless your organization dedicated significant time and financial resources to developing and maintaining internal redundant resources.
Application Support Services
KAV Consulting brings a wealth of Athenahealth/GE and healthcare expertise (see Resources listing on the last page) that also brings a depth of knowledge in many Centricity Business areas including:
- BAR
- DBMS
- EDI Toolkit
- eCommerce
- AES
- Cache SQL
- TES
- ETM
- Additional applications also supported
The value of contracting with KAV Consulting goes beyond simply having submitted issues resolved. In managing the support agreement, KAV Consulting also brings the value of up to the minute ETM application and design elements as well as upgrade support for new releases. We intend to also proactively identify areas of improvement and/or enhancement to the client’s utilization of ETM. This proactive management compliments the reactive resolution of submitted issues and ensures that the client is experiencing the highest value possible from the agreement.
KAV’s support agreement is supplemental to Athenahealth’s support agreement in that Athenahealth’s support is for application failures whereas KAV would support the design, build, and maintenance. All issues occurring in the application must be triaged to ensure that they are not designed or build related before being submitted to Athenahealth as an application issue. It is important to understand that the services we provide would be considered billable if submitted to Athenahealth. KAV’s support agreement helps ensure that only actual application issues are submitted to Athenahealth’s, reducing costly design and build review by Athenahealth support. Additionally, KAV’s support agreement would cover basic design and build modifications to meet the changing needs of the revenue cycle.
Contract Specifics
Contracts are defined based on three-tier levels that depend on the KAV dedicated monthly resource effort and duration of the agreement. Table 1 outlines the Tier Level based on the effort and contract duration. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are dependent upon the tier level.
Table 1 - Tier Level Assignment
| Effort Level | Contract Years | ||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| Strategic Partnership | Tier 1 | Tier 1 | Tier 2 |
| Staff Supplementation | Tier 2 | Tier 2 | Tier 1 |
| App Assist | Tier 2 | Tier 2 | Tier 1 |
| Retainer | Tier 3 | Tier 3 | Tier 3 |
Table 2 shows the priority assigned to issues and requests according to the reported importance of the request as well as the Tier of the client contract.
Table 2- Assignment Priority
| Priority | Definition | Assignment Tier 1 Clients | Assignment Tier 2 Clients | Assignment Tier 3 Clients |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urgent | Requiring immediate action or attention, initiating work stoppage | 2 hours | 4 hours | 8 hours |
| High | Impact on daily operations, but no work stoppage | 4 hours | 8 hours | 16 hours |
| Medium | Partial impact on daily operations | 1 day | 2 days | 5 days |
| Low | Request not impacting daily operations | 2 days | 5 days | 10 days |
Once items have been assigned, initial feedback on triaging and response will occur as indicated in Table 3.
This response time does not indicate the final resolution of the issue/request since that may require multiple iterations of communication but indicates an initial response or attempt at a resolution
Table 3 - Response Priority
| Priority | Definition | Initial Response Tier 1 Clients | Initial Response Tier 2 Clients | Initial Response Tier 3 Clients |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urgent | Requiring immediate action or attention | 1 day | 2 days | 3 days |
| High | Impact on daily operations, but no work stoppage | 3 days | 5 days | 7 days |
| Medium | Partial impact on daily operations | 5 days | 10 days | 14 days |
| Low | Request not impacting daily operations | 10 days | 20 days | 30 days |
Issue Tracking and Management Reporting
KAV Consulting uses a web-based issue tracking module to submit, track and resolve client requests. We refer to it as KAValry! We are here to assist!
Reports will be issued monthly to provide feedback on outstanding issues, initial assignment measurements as well as response time targets to gauge KAV Consulting’s performance.
- Tier 1 clients will have a 1-hour meeting scheduled each month to review support protocol goals and pending tickets
- Tier 2 clients will receive a generated report of support protocol goals and pending tickets; meetings available upon request
- Tier 3 clients will be provided a monthly report of pending and closed tickets and effort utilized.
Several of our Current Support Contracts Clients
Schumacher Clinical Partners
Laura Steinkraus Machen, MHA, Vice President of Revenue Cycle Systems, Training & Cash Application
4849 Greenville Ave, Suite 400
Dallas TX, 75206
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Chris Boyd, Patient Revenue Systems
633 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Dignity Health Medical Foundation
Margaret Boggs-Hatfield, Director, Patient Financial Services
3400 Data Drive
Rancho Cordova, CA 95670
HCFS of TEAMHealth
Fazie Harney Vice President, Applications
1643 N Harrison Parkway, Bldg H, Suite 100
Sunrise, FL 33323
KAV Consulting Resources
- Kathy Vetovich
- 35+ years in the IDX/GE/ Athenahealth environment
- Previous IS/IT experience
- A/R Manager experience
- Timothy Brewis
- 20+ years in healthcare
- Previous IT and A/R Manager experience
- Developed many of the workflow improvements specific to KAV
- Shaun Vetovich
- 10+ years in healthcare
- Strong SQL/programming expertise with great awareness of consistency
- Developed KAVart reporting tool that automates report production from SQL using standard non-licensed tools
- Jeff Pomeroy
- 25+ years in healthcare
- AES background with technical experience in areas of interfaces, claims, and remittances
- Strong structural knowledge of many IDX/GE/ Athenahealth applications
- Linda McDaniel
- 20+ years in healthcare
- Crosses multiple GE/ Athenahealth applications from Centricity Business and Centricity RIS
- Strong administrative and operational background
- Mike Boyd
- 15+ years in healthcare
- Strong foundation in ETM and cache SQL support
- Significant experience in customer service environments
- Amanda Vella
- 15+ years in healthcare
- Strong background in BAR applications and ETM
- Focused on Support Contracts
- Noreen Garrido
- 25+ years in healthcare
- AES background with technical experience in areas of production and automation
- Structural knowledge of several IDX/GE/ Athenahealth applications and expertise in EDI
- Melyssa Johnson
- 30+ years in healthcare
- Strong technical background in BAR and SCHED applications
- AES programming and support background
- Susan Marty
- 25+ years in the IDX/GE/ Athenahealth environment
- Previous IS/IT experience
- Strong front end, interface, change control knowledge