HME billing and business management software solution provider Brightree LLC has acquired home health and hospice software provider CareAnyware Inc. The combination creates what Brightree says is the largest provider of cloud-based software for the post-acute care industry, with 500 employees serving nearly 3,000 companies in the HME, home health, hospice, orthotics and prosthetics, home infusion, and rehab homecare segments.
“Homecare is becoming a critical component of our nation’s ability to provide quality care in a more affordable manner,” said David Cormack, president and CEO of Brightree. “Brightree and CareAnyware have come together to deliver world-class technology solutions that help providers operate more effectively and improve patient outcomes in today’s challenging healthcare market.
Brightree and CareAnyware are both “software as a service (SaaS)-based solutions that let homecare providers to adapt more readily to regulatory changes and new market demands, such as safely sharing patient information across the continuum of care. Cormack says this is important for home health agencies and similar providers are using older or homegrown systems.
“Similar to the HME market several years ago, the home health and hospice industry is crowded with disparate, legacy systems that are difficult to use and costly to maintain,” he says. “Brightree’s proven track record of providing innovative, cloud-based technology solutions and superior customer service will be a very welcome change for many agencies that are still relying on legacy software.”
Brightree plans to leverage each software’s capabilities to improve the other. For example, CareAnyware’s 10 years of experience building clinical expertise will help Brightree develop new point-of-care and outcomes-tracking capabilities for HME providers. Similarly, Brightree’s billing and business automation expertise will benefit CareAnyware customers by providing new efficiencies in their back-office operations and patient contact management strategies.
In addition to serving the two groups — homecare/hospiceand HME — the merger of the two solutions plays to a continued trend of expandinginto new service areas on the part of HMEs, according to Chris Watson, chief marketingofficer for Brightree.
“For quite some time Brightree has been focused on listeningand learning from our customers and how they are diversifying their businessesin terms of new revenue models, new ownership, new partnerships, new lines ofbusiness and service,” she says. “Ourexpansion of our platform an dour software capabilities is really tied to ourcustomers diversifying.”
And to that end, she says providers are looking for a singleplatform for those multiple lines of business. This includes expansion into areassuch as infusion — to that end, Brightree has a coming infusion offering — aswell as home health agencies. Moreover, that diversification is a trend hat was manifesting itself in the home health and hospice segment as well.
“Really, the lines are blurring between the different points of care once the patient leaves the hospital,” she says. “As the acute care world, the hospitals, care more about what happens to that patient once he or she leaves, because of the readmission penalties, and because of the [accountable care organization] model, and some of the different ownership models that are coming into play, there are more people caring about the post-acute care markets than ever before.”
All in all, the combined organization’s nearly 3,000 customers process $10 billion of medical claims annually and are responsible for servicing the home care needs of more than 20 million patients. With Brightree’s planned $70 million investment in customer service and product development over the next four years, the company aims to have positioned itself to help its customers navigate the currently difficult regulatory and economic conditions facing the HME/homecare industry for 2013 and beyond.
“Together, we have an opportunity to build upon our track records of innovation and customer service to meet the rapidly changing needs of our industry,” said Rich Guerin, former CEO of CareAnyware and current EVP at Brightree. “Our customers can also be confident the acquisition creates a strong financial position for our business, enabling us to continue investing in their long-term success.”