Partnering to serve the local community

Paul Emerson:                  
Today, we're also lucky to be joined by one of our provider organization partners, Tom Albanesi, who is the CFO of Excela Health.

So, good afternoon, Tom and welcome.

Tom Albanesi:                  
Hi Paul, how are you?

Paul Emerson:                  
I'm well, thanks. Thanks for joining us. So, tell us a little bit about Excela and the relationship that you have with Optum.

Tom Albanesi:                  
Yes. We entered into a end-to-end revenue cycle partnership with Optum about 18 months ago. Excela is an independent health system, about an hour east of Pittsburgh and our board of directors and management want to maintain our independence and we thought this revenue cycle partnership with Optum was going to be key in allowing us to do so.

Paul Emerson:                  
So, so tell me a little bit, we talked a lot through the formation of this partnership, so tell me how this partnership has contributed to Excela's vision for local care, excellence and innovation.

Tom Albanesi:                  
Yeah. The one word you're using, which I really appreciate, Paul is the word partnership. We were not looking to outsource revenue cycle. We wanted to partner with someone so that management still had a lot of control and a lot of insight into what was going on there, but we wanted to find a partner who had the tools, the technology, and the consulting capabilities to allow us to succeed in that area and so Optum was our preferred partner and again, it's 18 months now. We're still very, very pleased with it.

The end-to-end partnership with Optum has allowed us to focus on what we're good at and what we do well, and it's allowed Optum to come in and really become part of our management team. We don't treat Optum and Optum's executives like they're vendors. They're part of our management team at Excela.