2016 Product Retrospective

Kareo 2016 Year in Review

The year 2016 was a transformative year for Kareo and our customers. It marked our evolution into the first and only technology and services platform built to meet the unique needs of independent practices and clinics and their patients. With Kareo, healthcare professionals can efficiently and effectively manage all major care steps, from scheduling right thought to insurance billing and everything in between.

We launched our integrated platform in May, 2016. Both before and after this launch, we continued work to expand Kareo’s features and functionality. Given the number of improvements made during the year, I wanted to highlight some of the more valuable.

Kareo Delivers Seamless, Integrated Platform
Not surprisingly, the most significant improvement we made from last year was the release of Kareo’s unified platform in May. This was one of the largest efforts in Kareo’s history, driven by our goal of delivering technology and services that help our customers meet their goals for their practices and clinics. The Kareo Platform was designed to simplify and streamline the work of every member of the practice team while helping each do their jobs faster and more efficiently. Within Kareo, you’ll find modules for finding and engaging patients, managing clinical encounters, and of course, getting paid.

Clinical Module Becomes MACRA Ready

The past year has brought many changes to the healthcare industry, including MACRA which has a significant impact on healthcare providers’ reimbursement. Recognizing this, Kareo took the appropriate steps to maximize your potential for increased revenue and mitigate your risks of payment decreases. As a result, we made Kareo’s Clinical Module MACRA-ready by making updates to the Patient Care Checklist for MACRA.  Starting January 1^st, 2017, Kareo Clinical became MACRA-ready for our "core" specialties (e.g. General/Family/Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Cardiology, Psychiatry etc.). We are 2014 certified and we will be 2015 certified in the near future for the 2018 requirements.

Exciting New Features and Platform Capabilities

Based on feedback from our users, we worked on several new capabilities. We revamped our Patient Statement Mailing Service, making statements easier to understand and the ability to offer multiple payment options to increase the ease and speed of payment. After launching this upgraded solution, we’ve seen patient collections increase by over 10% for users for this service. In the spirit of improving reimbursements, we also added a quick and easy electronic charge entry with Electronic Charge Capture as well.

Delighting customers is paramount to growing a practice, with this in mind we also introduce Kareo Rx Saver. With this feature, physicians can help their patients identify the lowest cost options for fulfilling prescriptions and then use this information when writing and submitting prescriptions electronically. We also created a New Message Center which allows offices to communicate with their patients via email and text, send mass communications to preset and custom patient groups. Patients can how respond to these communications via text or email.


Ease-of-Use Enhancements
Moving quickly and efficiently to maximize patient care and service is very important to success. We received several suggestions on how to do just this and implemented these changes. For example, we improved the Patient Date of Birth Visibility, added a Same-as-Last-Time (SALT) Superbill that copies diagnoses and charges from a patient’s previous Superbill, and provided Template Default and Favorites Enhancements. We also improved Billing Analytics to help you better understand the financial health of the practice.

There are dozens of additional improvements that were made in 2016 – too many to mention in this blog. For a complete listing and the Help Center articles that describe the changes and where to access them, visit our Release Notes.

At Kareo we believe in you and the work you’re doing. We are committed to helping you succeed by adapting our products and services to match the changing healthcare market while giving you the best opportunity to win as an independent practice, clinic, or billing company. We have some exciting changes coming in 2017. I cannot wait to hear about your success!