Allscripts' Veradigm inks deal with Social Security Administration

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions' payer and life sciences division, Veradigm, has inked a contract with the Social Security Administration, the U.S. agency that administers Social Security retirement and disability benefits, the Chicago-based software company announced Tuesday.

Under the agreement, the agency will be able to electronically request medical records through Veradigm's network when it processes disability applications. Healthcare providers in the company's network will then receive electronic requests for medical records from the SSA with patients' authorization, which can then be released automatically.

That should accelerate the time it takes to retrieve health records for SSA applicants from weeks to minutes, according to a news release from Allscripts, and could reduce the administrative burden on providers, who might otherwise have to manually respond to medical record requests.

"Not only do we expect this contract to be a meaningful financial contributor, it will also be a catalyst for us to evolve our capabilities to a point where we will have near real-time chart extraction," said Rick Poulton, Allscripts' chief financial officer, on a call to discuss 2021 fourth-quarter financial results with investment analysts last week. Near real-time chart extraction will help providers and payers close care gaps and manage at-risk contracts, Poulton said.

Allscripts did not disclose financial details of the agreement in the news release.

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Allscripts, best known as an electronic health records developer, launched Veradigm in 2018 to sell data and analytics tools that link providers with payers and life sciences companies.

It's been a significant area of growth for Allscripts, which posted $392 million in fourth-quarter revenue last week—up 1.4% year-over-year, including $232.2 million from its hospitals and large physician practices segment and $155.2 million from Veradigm. The hospitals and large physician practices segment dropped 2.3% from the year-ago quarter, while Veradigm's revenue rose 8.9%.

Allscripts reported $1.503 billion in full-year 2021 revenue, up slightly from $1.5027 billion during the previous year—and including $927.6 million from hospitals and large physician practices, down 2.4%, and $552.2 million from Veradigm, up 4.6%. Operating income was $77.2 million in 2021, compared to an operating loss of $130.9 million in 2020.

In recent years, EHR companies have been diversifying their businesses, offering tools and services that build on patient data.

Cerner, which posted $5.8 billion in revenue last year and plans to be acquired by Oracle, has identified "data-as-a-service" as a growth opportunity and also recently struck an agreement with the SSA. In 2020, Epic Systems, a privately held company that holds the largest EHR market share of U.S. hospitals, launched Cosmos, a research database of de-identified EHR data.