Brightree, VGM Enter 10-Year Partnership
Business management software maker Brightree and HME member service organization VGM Group have announced a 10-year partnership that will encompass VGM’s respiratory, rehab and orthotics and prosthetics organizations to provide a variety of services using VGM’s member network and Brightree’s internet-based system.
“Through this partnership, we intend to create a large, virtual VGM/Brightree ‘community’ that can leverage a wealth of services that no individual provider could ever assemble alone,” said Ron Bendell, President VGM & Associates.
Brightree and VGM have already had a relationship for several years, according to Bendell and Brightree President and CEO Dave Cormack. “By making a long-term commitment to each other, we can accelerate the pace of introduction and significantly raise the bar on the products and services that we deliver to our customers,” Cromack added.
The relationship will blend Brightree’s software tools with VGM’s member network and data to provide services such as an “executive dashboard” that will let providers quickly benchmark their business operations against averages of all the data in the system. Members will be able to compare how they performing in terms of metrics, such as DSOs and claims by category, against the VGM membership or all of the users on the Brightree network.
The relationship will also leverage VGM information and services such as VGM Homelink referral tools, group e-purchasing, billing and collections metrics, consulting best practices and regulatory compliance tools.
Brightree’s HME “ecosystem” connects providers with suppliers, manufacturers, Medicare, private payers, and outsourcing partners using a standard Internet connection, rather than special software an servers installed on-site. Already the providers on the Brightree network process more than 10 million claims per year, which Cormack said is valued at almost $2 billion.
Since the system is Internet-based there are no initial software purchase costs, only a monthly fee which will be discounted by 10 percent for VGM members as part of the relationship, according to Cormack and Bendell.
Currently, approximately 300 of VGM’s 2,300 members use Brightree, according to Bendell.
One of the key features of the Brightree system that attracted VGM was the fact that it is Internet-based Bendell said. This was important during Hurricane Katrina, when a significant number of VGM members in affected areas were able to continue billing, since their data systems were hosted remotely.
“That really pointed out the importance of having a Internet based system where data is stored in other parts of the country,” he explained.
This article originally appeared in the April 2008 issue of HME Business.