A year ago, Pamplona Capital Management acquired MedAssets for $2.7 billion, immediately selling off its group purchasing organization and performance-improvement businesses and merging its revenue-cycle management business with Precyse, its own brand. A new identity for the combined company was announced Sunday.
NThrive will offer software, managed services, consulting and analytics solutions surrounding revenue-cycle management, combining the operations of MedAssets, Precyse and Equation, which was acquired by MedAssets-Precyse earlier this month. The brand was unveiled at the Healthcare Financial Management Association's 2016 National Institute in Las Vegas.
In interviews on Friday, nThrive executives claimed that the company provides an end-to-end, “patient-to-payment” solution that isn't currently available in the market in a single turnkey solution. The company's revenue is split 50/50 between software and services, CEO Joel Hackney said.
Dr. Jeremy Gelber, the Pamplona Capital partner who heads the firm's healthcare investments, told Modern Healthcare in January that the new, then-unnamed company would capitalize on apparent “fatigue” felt by hospital executives who need to contract with too many vendors for products and services surrounding the revenue-cycle process.
“Many health systems are using six, seven different vendors,” Gelber said. “When you do that, there is no accountability.”
Though the MedAssets' revenue-cycle business performed well before it was acquired, Hackney acknowledged it can do even better in a company exclusively focused on revenue cycle and separated from the GPO market.
“Being a pure-play revenue-cycle company, we believe will only accelerate our growth,” Hackney said. “Now it's a company that's exclusively focused on the revenue cycle for our partners and providers.”
There's no significant overlap in the three companies' offerings, said Chris Skiffington, nThrive's president of solutions. MedAssets brings a solid portfolio of revenue-cycle management software, including front-end software for initial admissions, a middle-end chargemaster component that manages pricing, and a back-end product focusing on claims and collections processes. The company also offers revenue-cycle consulting and managed services.
Precyse had software and managed services similar to MedAssets' offerings, with a focus on health information management and the effort to translate clinical documentation into billing, Skiffington said. Equation has filled a final gap in offering analytics concentrating on the revenue cycle.
“We think that the places where we play aren't really addressed by any of the big vendors,” Skiffington said. “As we bring the portfolio even closer together leveraging assets we think we'll make it easier for clients to come to us."
