A recently launched nonprofit trade association is hoping to serve as a key voice on technology advancement for healthcare administrative technology professionals, with priorities including promoting streamlined operations for practice management systems.
The Healthcare Administrative Technology Association, based in Southern California’s Orange County, says the practice management side of the industry needs broader representation and that it’s an important part of the overall healthcare landscape. It also aims to provide the tools to expand and build member’s client bases and networks.
“Formal representation of such an important piece of the healthcare ecosystem is critical to the advancement of the industry,” Tim McMullen, executive director of HATA, said in a statement. “HATA is a key stakeholder in the $40 billion physician revenue cycle industry and will be an active and influential voice promoting the goals and values within the healthcare administrative industry and driving administrative efficiencies..”
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The association is specifically seeking to enlist the following types of organizations:
- Any administrative technology company that creates and installs practice management systems – which may include scheduling, patient registration and revenue cycle management systems
- Affiliate members including payers, provider organizations, or other related industry professionals who contribute to the administrative technology industry
- Associate members including professional or trade associations and government entities
- Vendor member companies that provide products and services to principal members
Brad Lund, CEO of the International Society and Association Management, explained bit more on what’s behind the launch of HATA and what some of its metrics are for reaching its goals.
“Although the industry is consolidating , there are still over 500 (practice management) systems actively selling systems and serving healthcare providers and institutions,” he said. “We will measure our success by meeting our initial goal of attracting 150 members. Depending on the size of the (practice management) systems companies joining, it would be our expectation to be representing, from a size perspective, well over 50 percent of the entire industry. That will provide HATA the “strength in numbers” we need to represent the industry.”
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The association also hopes to have a voice in the ongoing discussions of interoperability, particularly among health information exchanges and patient data, and how it relates to the troves of financial data that practice management systems have amassed. That sort of data could be particularly important “as the new emerging payment models become more prevalent,” he said.