Denver Health: integration technology helps hospital recoup millions.

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In addition to being a teaching hospital and one of four level-one trauma centers in the state of Colorado, Denver Health ensures that all citizens of the City and County of Denver have access to healthcare regardless of their ability to pay. Today, thousands of patients without health insurance, as well as thousands of Medicaid patients, rely on Denver Health for their healthcare.

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"Our mission to be Denver's safety-net provider carries significant responsibility and brings with it more than a few challenges when it comes to dealing with unsponsored care," said Peg Burnette, CFO, Denver Health.

Increasingly, the organization has turned to technology to help further its mission and address these unique challenges. "We incur personnel and supply expenses for every patient we care for. If they don't have insurance and cannot pay for the care they receive, no money is coming in to cover these costs," said Burnette. "We have to be as efficient as we can; we see technology as a way to do that."

Once patients are registered with a self-pay status, manually checking their eligibility against the state Medicare/Medicaid database is costly and inefficient. Vendors provide services to run scheduled checks, but Denver Health saw an opportunity to develop its own technology solution with more flexibility and higher financial returns.

Together with technology partner Interlink, Denver Health developed Eligibility Reverification (ERV), an integrated workflow solution that allows the hospital to directly interface with the state system in a way that is the first of its kind. "We have a strategic partnership with Interlink to develop solutions, like ERV, that meet our unique business needs and contribute positively to our bottom line," said Burnette.

With the help of Microsoft BizTalk Server, ERV allows the hospital to match all uninsured patient accounts with the state's...