EMERYVILLE, Calif., Sept. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- RelayHealth Corporation, the nation’s premier provider of health plan-reimbursed online doctor-patient communication services, today announced the appointment of Jonathan Smith to vice president, Healthcare Sales. In this capacity, Jonathan will lead RelayHealth’s interactions with health plans nationwide, as well as large employers and benefit consultants.
Jonathan comes to RelayHealth from Aetna Inc., one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare benefits. At Aetna, Jonathan was responsible for National Accounts sales and was among Aetna’s top-five producers nationwide for several years running. In 2000, he earned the coveted Aetna Chairman’s Award for Extraordinary Performance.
During his tenure at Aetna, Jonathan was instrumental in developing and selling consumer-directed health plan (CDHP) products and high-performance networks for large employers nationwide. Designed to put consumers in control of medical decisions and costs, Forrester Research defines consumer-directed health plans as “member-centric, web-enabled insurance products combining personalized benefits, financial incentives, and a marketplace of providers and services.”
“The synergy between the RelayHealth service and CDHPs is clear. By enabling secure online access to a patient’s personal physician and providing a host of self-directed and lower cost healthcare services, we’re empowering healthcare consumers to access convenient, cost-effective, and clinically sound care,” said Giovanni Colella, MD, president and chief executive officer of RelayHealth. “Jonathan’s extensive experience in this area will help place RelayHealth at the nexus of this fast-growing family of health plan offerings.”
Research has shown that total health spending is reduced when consumers bear more responsibility for their healthcare expenses(1), while independent studies of the RelayHealth service found that medical office-based claims were lower by $1.92 per member per month, and that total healthcare claims were reduced by over $3.00 per member per month for those with access to the RelayHealth service(2).
“RelayHealth’s broad suite of patient-physician communication tools are a perfect fit for the consumerism movement,” said Jonathan. “The company has spent a tremendous amount of time and energy designing a service that benefits all stakeholders in the healthcare delivery chain-and in so doing empowers consumers with a new health and productivity tool while enabling physicians to manage their practice more efficiently. I’m delighted to be working with the healthcare industry’s leader in online communication, and the opportunity to improve access and quality of care.”
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.
(1) “Consumer-Directed Health Plans and the RAND Health Insurance Experiment,” Health Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 6 (November/December 2004).
(2) “The RelayHealth webVisit Study: Final Report”. January 2003. Available at www.relayhealth.com.
RelayHealth Corporation
CONTACT: Briana Pompei, +1-510-428-7853, or briana.pompei@relayhealth.com,for RelayHealth Corporation
Web site: http://www.relayhealth.com/
