EMERYVILLE, Calif., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- RelayHealth Corporation, the nation’s premier provider of health plan-reimbursed online doctor-patient communication services, today announced that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City will offer the RelayHealth service to qualifying HMO members starting in January 2006.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City is the largest health benefits provider in the metropolitan Kansas City area, serving more than 880,000 members in 32 counties in greater Kansas City, northwest Missouri, and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas.
“We’re very pleased to bring the convenience of webVisits(R) to our HMO members here in Kansas City,” said John W. Kennedy, chief operating officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City. “The primary care physicians who have been introduced to this program are very enthusiastic about its benefits for their patients. RelayHealth has built a unique and finely-tuned package of services that promises greater efficiency, convenience and value for both members and providers.”
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City primary care physicians who use RelayHealth for secure webVisit consultations with patients will be reimbursed by the health plan, while members will pay a small copay to utilize the benefit. A webVisit is an interactive online patient interview that collects relevant details about non-urgent symptoms and delivers them to the physician as concise, structured clinical notes.
Other RelayHealth online services to be made available to members include prescription refills and renewals, appointment scheduling, lab and test results, and electronic reminders. Providers will also gain the benefit of using RelayHealth’s eScript(R) electronic prescribing service to boost safety through legible, formulary and interaction checked prescriptions, transmitted directly to the patient’s network pharmacy of choice. Those with Electronic Health Record systems will have the ability to streamline charting and workflow using it’s recently launched Interoperability Toolkit, connecting RelayHealth to most major EHR systems.
“Through relationships like the one we’ve established with BCBSKC, leading health plans nationwide continue to validate how RelayHealth can expedite consumer-driven care initiatives,” said Giovanni Colella, MD, president and chief executive officer of RelayHealth. “By introducing clinical information technology at the point of care in a thoughtful and user-friendly way, our service can improve care processes, streamline chronic care management, and deliver greater access and convenience to plan members. We’ll continue to partner with innovative health plans to bring these important benefits to new markets.”
About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, the largest not-for-profit health insurer in the state and the only not-for-profit health insurer in Kansas City, has been part of the Kansas City community since 1938. BCBSKC provides health coverage to more than 880,000 residents in the greater Kansas City area and Northwest Missouri. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. For more information on the company, visit our redesigned Web site at www.bcbskc.com.
About RelayHealth Corporation
RelayHealth is the premier provider of payor-reimbursed secure online healthcare communication services linking patients, healthcare professionals, health plans, and pharmacies. A secure, clinically structured productivity platform for the medical office, the RelayHealth service is an emerging online communication standard, interfacing with both commercial and custom-built electronic medical record systems through the company’s Interoperability Toolkit. Research studies show RelayHealth reduces phone traffic and increases physician productivity through modular features like the webVisit(R) clinical consultation and eScript(R) electronic prescribing -- one reason leading health plans nationwide increasingly reimburse providers who use the RelayHealth service. For healthcare consumers, RelayHealth improves convenience, access and communication with their own doctors. For information, visit www.relayhealth.com.
RelayHealth Corporation
CONTACT: Briana Pompei of RelayHealth, +1-510-428-7853, orbriana.pompei@relayhealth.com; or Susan M. Johnson of BCBSKC,+1-816-395-3566, or susan.johnson@bcbskc.com
