St. Luke's Adds Pharmacy ChargeLink® to its Craneware Revenue Integrity Solutions®

ATLANTA, Dec. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Craneware, Inc., the healthcare market leader in automated revenue integrity solutions, today announced that St. Luke's hospital in the Texas Medical Center will add Pharmacy ChargeLink® to the range of Craneware Revenue Integrity Solutions® used across the St. Luke's Health System hospitals, which on May 31 became part of Catholic Health Initiatives, the nation's third-largest faith-based health system.

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The vital role of pharmacy in achieving quality care at lower cost is a focal point for hospitals working to optimize operational efficiency, compliance and reimbursement. With the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) focus on transparency, healthcare leaders increasingly need to establish processes for pharmacy revenue integrity and data governance across their hospitals and clinics. Craneware pioneered technology for verifying pharmacy data with its initial 2008 release of Pharmacy ChargeLink, which helps give better visibility into drug purchase and reimbursement.

"St. Luke's selected Craneware's Pharmacy ChargeLink to bring together wholesaler drug spend, formulary, chargemaster, revenue and usage data that typically reside in silos," said Craig Frost, RPh, MBA, Assistant Vice President. "By bringing together this data into one source for viewing and reporting, it will help identify costly errors and gaps, such as drugs purchased but missing CPT, HCPCS or revenue codes from the chargemaster, drugs with invalid National Drug Code (NDC) values in the spend file, or variances where the purchased volume differs from the billed volume."

"Healthcare organizations of all sizes must verify the accuracy of their pharmacy data, particularly when converting to electronic health records," said Craneware CEO Keith Neilson. "To help hospitals realize the value inherent in the validation of their pharmacy charges, Pharmacy ChargeLink supports a proven data governance process for ensuring the accuracy and integrity of pharmacy data. We're very pleased that St. Luke's has chosen our solution to help sustain their success in providing the best possible care to their communities."

Craneware's Pharmacy ChargeLink will be highlighted at the American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP) Midyear Clinical Meeting, the premier gathering for leaders in health-system pharmacy. The ASHP Midyear Meeting will be held in Orlando, Fla. on Dec. 8-12, 2013. Craneware will exhibit in booth #136.

About St. Luke's Health System: St. Luke's Health System includes: St. Luke's hospital in the Texas Medical Center; St. Luke's The Woodlands Hospital; St. Luke's Sugar Land Hospital; St. Luke's Lakeside Hospital; St. Luke's Patients Medical Center; and St. Luke's Hospital at The Vintage. St. Luke's is home to the Texas Heart^® Institute, which was founded in 1962 by Denton A. Cooley, MD. Affiliated with several nursing schools and three medical schools, St. Luke's hospital in the Texas Medical Center was the first hospital in Texas named a Magnet Hospital for Nursing Excellence, receiving the award three times.

About Catholic Health Initiatives: Catholic Health Initiatives is a national nonprofit health system with headquarters in Englewood, Colo. The faith-based system operates in 18 states and includes 86 hospitals; 40 long-term care, assisted- and residential-living facilities; two academic medical centers; two community health-services organizations; two accredited nursing colleges; and home health agencies. Currently, CHI ranks as the nation's third-largest faith-based health system, with annual operating revenues of more than $12 billion and approximately 85,500 employees. In fiscal year 2012, CHI provided more than $715 million in charity care and community benefit, including services for the poor, free clinics, education and research.

About Craneware: Craneware (AIM: CRW.L) is the leader in automated revenue integrity solutions that improve financial performance for healthcare organizations. Craneware's market-driven, SaaS solutions help hospitals and other healthcare providers more effectively price, charge, code and retain earned revenue for patient care services and supplies. This helps customers optimize reimbursement, increase operational efficiency, minimize compliance risk, and retain more earned revenue. By partnering with Craneware, clients achieve the visibility required to identify, address and prevent revenue leakage. To learn more, visit craneware.com and stoptheleakage.com.

SOURCE Craneware, Inc.