HERAE (www.herae.com), one of the nation’s largest healthcare payment services providers, announced a Quick Start Program for healthcare providers in Minnesota that face the State’s E3 Initiative December deadline. The State is mandating that all healthcare providers accept electronic payments and remittance advice by December 15, 2009 or pay penalties.

HERAE (pronounced ‘hurray’) will present its Quick Start Program at an exhibit at the Minnesota MGMA 2009 Summer Conference, July 29 – 31 at the The Mayo Civic Center in Rochester.

Although HIPAA calls for electronic transfer of healthcare payment and remittance advice, not all providers are in compliance due to ambiguity in the law and extended deadlines, according to HERAE. Now there is a renewed national and state focus on this issue, and tough laws are appearing at the state level, such as the one Minnesota has passed, to reinforce HIPAA’s deficiencies.

“State lawmakers are getting serious on the issue of electronic healthcare payments,” said HERAE CEO Jim Ribelin. “Healthcare providers need a solution for electronic healthcare payments to avoid non-compliance, and they also need the electronic funds transfer piece. HERAE has the entire solution from ERA to EFT and we’ve committed the extra staff to help healthcare providers in Minnesota migrate to an electronic healthcare payment system by the deadline.”

HERAE provides a patent-pending, hosted solution that turns the healthcare payment piece into a fully electronic format and automates the re-association between EFTs and ERAs. The HERAE system has an average turnaround of just two days for a deposit as compared to nine days for paper deposits.

HERAE’s Web-based solution, DirectERA, is pay-per-transaction as well as bank and billing system neutral. Its “Direct Connect” with payers is bundled into the solution.

According to the Healthcare Financial Management Association, the projected annual savings in the U.S. for electronic payments and remittance is estimated at $35 billion by simply eliminating more than 2.5 billion pieces of paper from the system.

While other electronic formats are getting a lot of attention – Personal Health Records (PHR), Electronic Medical Records (EMR), President Obama's National Healthcare Reform – HERAE provides a timely solution focused on reducing the costs, time, expenses, inefficiencies and waste inherent in the current healthcare payment system and will have an impact the moment it’s implemented.

“The logical target for early success isn’t the Electronic Health Record (EHR) that is receiving so much attention, but the payment system, where the new process is already established, the standards are defined and the systems are in place such as bank ACH transactions and the HIPAA 835 or ERA files,” said Ribelin. “Fix the payment system, and the savings that are realized can be used as a stepping stone towards other changes, like the electronic health record and the challenge of providing healthcare coverage to the uninsured.”

About HERAE, LLC

A privately owned limited liability company based in San Diego, California, HERAE is one of the nation’s largest healthcare payment services providers and offers Direct Deposit for Healthcare. HERAE’s paperless process has been implemented by medical practices, financial institutions and valued added resellers (VARs) throughout the United States since 2005. Through its unique focus on healthcare billing challenges, electronic remittance advice and solutions for the financial industry, HERAE has developed a paperless process that provides the payment channel between healthcare providers, payers and banks. On the Net: www.herae.com or call 888-41-HERAE (888-414-3723).

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