Payment Rankings for Insurance Companies Released

athenahealth, Inc., a provider of internet-based business services to physician practices, and Physicians Practice, a leading practice management journal for physicians, today released the fourth annual PayerView Rankings that indicate national health insurers are paying physicians 5.3 percent faster and denying 9.0 percent fewer medical claims over the prior year. Humana, Inc. was the top ranked national payer.

This year's rankings represented the largest data set to date, using performance data from more than 18,000 medical providers representing over 41 million medical charge lines and $7 billion dollars in charges billed to payers in 47 states for all four quarters of 2008. The data is derived from athenahealth's national electronic health record (EHR) and practice management platform, athenaNet(R), and ranks health insurers according to specific measures of financial performance, administrative performance, and medical policy complexity.

The complete 2009 PayerView Rankings and trends, evaluating 172 national, regional, and government payers in 40 states, can be found at www.athenahealth.com/PayerView.